



'^^o^ : 













.°-n.^ 












.^'\ 









< o 



^°-n^. 



„^^^-^. 






^""•^^ 



U^"^ 



v..^- 



..^\. 






^ 
l^'\.^" 



.^•^°- 






.0" 






.0^ 



"^^O^ 







4^ ^'■^/rTT^ 









FRIENDS OF FRANCE 




J:=>a^ y^ranc^yu 



u^rriere 



,p^ t^, 




Fi^IENDS 
OF FINANCE 



cJuo/ton anl jlb-ev^ iJorS, 



1?^1 



v>^ 



OOPYRIGHT, I916, BY HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 



CONTENTS 

Introduction A. Piatt Andrew xvii 

Letter from Section Leaders xix 

I. The Organization of the Service Stephen Galatti 1 

n. At the Back op the Front: Dunkirk and Ypre3 

Henry Sydnor Harrison 6 

m. The Section in Alsace Reconquise 

Preston Lockwood 21 

IV. Last Days in Alsace . . . Everett Jackson 51 

V. The Section in Lorraine . James R. McConnell 61 
With an introduction by Theodore Roosevelt 

VI. An American Ambulance in the Verdun Attack 

Frank Hoyt Gailor 89 

VII. One of the Sections at Verdun Henry Sheahan 109 

VIII. The Section in Flanders . Joshua G. B. Campbell 117 

IX. The Beginnings of a New Section George Rockwell 131 

X. Un Bless^ a MoNTAxmiiLE . . Emery Pottle 136 

XI. Christmas Eve, 1915 .... Waldo Peirce 139 

XII. The Inspector's Letter Box 148 

Our ambulances — How the cars reach Paris — En 
route for the front — First impressions — The daily pro- 
gramme — Handling the wounded — The wounded — 
Night duty — Fitting into the life — Pay sages de guerre 
— Soldier life — July 22 at Pont-a-Mousson — Incidents 

vii 



CONTENTS 

XII. The Inspector's Letter Box {continued) . . 148 

of a driver's life — Three Croix de Guerre — From day to 
day — From another diary — Fm-ther pages — A night 
trip — An attack — • Poilu hardships — Winter in Alsace 

— Weeks of quiet — Night — Morning — Stray thoughts 

— A gallant blessS — Perils of a blizzard — Poignant 
impressions — In the hospital — New quarters — The 
poetry of war. 

Champagne, 1914—1915 ...... 227 

XIII. Four Letters prom Verdun ..... 232 

Tributes and Citations 252 

Me^ibers op the Field Service S37 



THE MEMBERS OF THE FIELD SERVICE 

DESIRE TO EXPRESS SINCERE GRATITUDE 

TO 

M. CHARLES HUARD 

AND TO 
M. BERNARD NAUDIN 

FOR 

THE INTEREST WHICH 

THEIR DISTINGUISHED TALENT 

HAS ADDED TO THIS BOOK 



ILLUSTRATIONS 

La France Guerrihre * Frontispiece 

Dunkirk, May, 1915 6 

An American Ambulance in Flanders .10 

An American Ambulance in Ypres ....... 12 

Soldiers marching by American Ambulances in a Flemish 
Town 14; 

Americans in their Gas-Masks *....... 16 

The Col de Bussang — the Gate to Alsace Reconquise . . . 22 

Supplies for the Soldiers being carried on Mules over the Vosges 
Mountains .24 

At a Valley *'Poste" (Mittlach) .24 

American Drivers in Alsace ........ 28 

A **Poste de Secours" in the Valley of the Fecht ... 30 

Sharing Meals at a '' Poste" . 30 

La Terre Promise 36 

The Harvard Club of Alsace Reconquise ..... 42 

Winter Days in Alsace . . . . . . . . .54 

Effect of German Shells in Alsace (Thann) . . . . .58 

On the Road to Hartmannsweilerkopfy December, 1915 . . 58 

Shells breaking on the C6te-de-Mousson ..... 70 

Watching an Aeroplane Duel in Pont-d^Mousson ... 70 

In Front of a *' Poste de Secours'* ....... 74 

An American Ambulance Driver , . 74 

xi 



ILLUSTRATIONS 

On the Road to Bois-le-Pretre . . T . . . . .78 

Fontaine du Pere Hilarion, Bois-le-Pretre 78 

Loading the Ambulance 94 

At a *'Poste'' at the Very Front . 104 

Soldiers of France . . . . * . . ^ . . . . 110 

Americans in their Gas-Masks in front of the Bomh-proof 
Shelter outside of the Headquarters 118 

A *' Poste de Secours" in Flanders 122 

Waiting at a *'Poste de Secours" 122 

A Winter Day in Flanders 124 

A Group of American Drivers in Northern France . . . 128 

The Cathedral in Nieuport, July, 1915 128 

Some of the Members of Section IV 132 

Approaching the High-Water Mark 134 

"Poilus'^ and Americans sharing their Lunch .... 134 

Richard Hall 144 

Richard Hall's Grave 146 

An Inspection Trip in Alsace 152 

Within Sight of the German Trenches 154 

Stretchers slung between Two Wheels on their Way from the 
Trenches 156 

Evacuating a Hospital 158 

Transferring the Wounded to the Train 158 

The End of an Ambulance 166 

xii 



ILLUSTRATIONS 

Decoration of Carey and Hale 178 

A Winter Morning 182 

Alsatian Woods in Winter 182 

The *' Poste de Secours" near Hartmannsweilerkopf . . . 186 

Winter in Alsace 194 

What Night Trips mthout Lights sometimes mean . . .212 

The Dangers of the Road 212 

Mule Convoy in Alsace . . 214 

The *'Poste" near Hartmannsweilerkopf after a Bombardment 214 

One of our Cars in Trouble . 216 

Coffins in Courtyard of Base Hospital in Alsace . . . 216 

Richard Hall's Car after Shell landed under it . , . . 218 

A "Posts de Secours'* at Montaunlle 222 

Saudsse above Verdun 232 

At a Dressing-Station near Verdun 236 

American Ambulance in Verdun . . . , . . . 242 

American Ambulance at a Dressing-Station near Verdun . 246 

A Corner of Verdun, July, 1916 250 

Headquarters of the American Ambulance Field Service, 21 Rue 

Raynouard, Paris 276 

Some of the Men of the American Ambulance Field Service at 

their Headquarters, 21 Rue Raynouard, Paris . . . 278 

The ** Croix de Guerre" 278 

The " Midaille Militaire " 330 

"Vive la France l" ... * 346 

xiii 



PORTRAITS OF MEN "CITED" 

Roger M. L. BaMmd . 281 

Edwa/rd BaHlett 281 

William Barber 330 

Leslie Buswell . 283 

Joshua Campbell . 283 

Graham Carey 285 

John Clark . 285 

Edmund J. Curley .287 

Benjamin Dawson 287 

David B. Douglass 289 

Luke C. Doyle 289 

Brooke Leonard Edwards 291 

Powel Fenton * .291 

Stephen Galatti 293 

Halcott Glover 293 

Richard Ball . . . . . 295 

Dudley Bale 297 

Sigurd Bansen 297 

Lovering Bill . . . . . . 299 

Lawrence Bitt 301 

George BoUister 301 

Everett Jackson . 303 

Philip Lewis 303 

xiv 



ILLUSTRATIONS 

Walter Lovell S05 

James R, McConnell 305 

Douglas MacMonagle 307 

William T. Martin .307 

Joseph Mellen . ^ ,...,... . 309 

Francis Dashwood Ogilvie 309 

Waldo Peirce 311 

Thomas Potter .311 

Tracy J. Putnam 313 

Beverly Rantoul 313 

Durant Rice 315 

George Roeder 315 

Edward Salisbury 317 

Roswell Sanders 330 

Bernard Schroder 317 

James Milton Sponagle 319 

Henry SucUey 319 

John Taylor 321 

Edward Tinkham 321 

Donald M. Walden 323 

J. Marquand Walker 323 

Victor White 325 

Walter Wheeler 327 

Harold Willis . 327 

William H. Woolverton ...,,,... 329 




INTRODUCTION 

Les fitats-Unis d'Am^rique n'ont pas oubli^s que la premiere page de 
I'histoire de leur independance a ete ecrite avec un peu de sang franQais. 
(GSnSral Joffre.) 

The following pages, written and edited in the course 
of active service in France, tell, however imperfectly, 
something of the experiences of a small group of young 
Americans who have not been inert onlookers during 
the Great War. 

Few in number and limited in their activities, this 
little band of American ambulance drivers in France 
is of course insignificant when compared with the 
tens of thousands of young Frenchmen who crossed 
the ocean as soldiers and sailors to help America in 
1777. To the valor and devotion of these Frenchmen 
we owe our very existence as an independent nation, 
and nothing that Americans have done for France 
during these last hard years of trial can be thought 
of — without embarrassment — in relation with what 
Frenchmen did for us in those unforgettable years of 
our peril from 1777 to 1781. 

The little group of Americans told of in this book 
who, during the past two years, have dedicated valiant 
effort and, not unfrequently, risked their lives in the 
service of France, can best be thought of as only a 

xvii 



INTRODUCTION 

symbol of millions of other Americans, men and wo- 
men, who would gladly have welcomed an opportun- 
ity to do what these men have done — or more. For, 
notwithstanding official silence and the injunctions 
of presidential prudence, the majority of Americans 
have come to appreciate the meaning, not only to 
France, but to all the world, of the issues that are to- 
day so desperately at stake, and their hearts and hopes 
are all with France in her gigantic struggle. They 
share with the world at large a feeling towards the 
French people of sympathy, of admiration, and, in- 
deed, of reverence, such as exists towards the people 
of no other country; and millions of them, like these 
volunteers of the American Ambulance, have been 
tortured by a longing to Lave some share with the 
people of France in defending the ideals for which, 
as they feel, America has always stood, and for which 
France is now making such vast, such gallant, and 
such unflinching sacrifice. 

The service to France of Americans, whether am- 
bulance drivers, surgeons, nurses, donors and dis- 
tributors of relief, aviators, or foreign ISgionnaireSy 
when measured by the prodigious tasks with which 
France has had to cope during the past two years, has 
indeed been infinitesimally small; but their service to 
America itself has been important. They have ren- 
dered this inestimable benefit to their country. They 
have helped to keep alive in France the old feeling of 
friendship and respect for us which has existed there 
since our earliest days and which, otherwise, would 

2cviii 



INTRODUCTION 

probably have ceased to exist. They have helped to 
demonstrate to the chivalrous people of France that 
Americans, without hesitating to balance the personal 
profit and loss, still respond to the great ideals that 
inspired the founders of our Republic. They have 
helped France to penetrate official reticence and re- 
discover America's surviving soul. 

When all is said and done, however, the ambulanciers 
themselves have gained the most from the work in 
which they have taken part. It is a privilege even in 
ordinary times to live in this ''doux pays de France J"^ 
to move about among its gentle and finished land- 
scapes, in the presence of its beautiful architectural 
heritages and in daily contact with its generous, sen- 
sitive, gifted, and highly intelligent people. Life in 
France, even in ordinary times, means to those of 
almost any other country daily suggestions of cour- 
tesy, refinement, and thoughtful consideration for 
others. It means continual suggestions of an intelli- 
gent perspective in the art of living and in the things 
that give life dignity and worth. 

The opportunity of living in France, as these Ameri- 
cans have lived during the past two years of war, has 
meant all this and more. It has meant memories of 
human nature exalted by love of country, shorn of 
self, singing amidst hardships, smiling at pain, un- 
mindful of death. It has meant contact with the most 
gentle and the most intelligent of modern peoples 
facing mortal peril — facing it with silent and unshak- 
able resolve, victoriously resisting it with modesty 

xix 



INTRODUCTION 

and with never a vaunting word. It has meant im- 
perishable visions of intrepidity and of heroism as 
fine as any in the records of knight-errantry or in the 
annals of Homeric days. 

Nothing else, surely, can ever offer so much of no- 
ble inspiration as these glimpses of the moral gran- 
deur of unconquerable France. 

A. Piatt Andrew 
Inspector General of the Field Service 





The publication of this book presents an opportunity of show- 
ing our appreciation of the extraordinarily successful work of 
A. Piatt Andrew in reorganizing and furthering the work of the 
Field Service of the American Ambulance. 

Those of us who were in the service before his arrival and have 
continued to work under him have been able to judge the effects of 
his efforts, and to realize the amount of activity, patience, and 
tact necessary to overcome the numerous difficulties which pre- 
sented themselves. It was through the confidence placed in him 
by the French military authorities that the small American squads, 
after reorganization to army standards, were allowed to take po- 
sitions of trust at the front. As a result of his untiring efforts in 
America funds were raised and cars donated to continue and ad- 
vance the work. 

No more striking proof can be given of the change in value to 
the Army of our Service, and of the change in the attitude of the 
authorities towards it, than the recent request of the Automobile 
Service to the American Ambulance for other Sections. When 
Mr. Andrew began his work we were seeking an opportunity to 
widen our sphere of work. Now the efficiency and usefulness of 
the service are such that the Army has requested that it be in- 
creased. 

We all owe much to Mr. Andrew: his devotion to the cause has 
inspired all those working with him. 

LovERiNG Hill 

Commander of Section III (Alsace) 
Edward V. Salisbury 

Commander of Section II (Lorraine) 

H. P. TOWNSEND 

Commander of Section I (Flanders) 



FRIENDS OF FRANCE 

I 

THE ORGANIZATION OF THE SERVICE 

APRIL 1915— APRIL 1916 

During the first eight months of the war the Ameri- 
can Ambulance continually hoped to extend its 
work to an Ambulance Service actually connected 
with the armies in the field, but not until April, 1915, 
were these hopes definitely realized. The history, 
however, of these first eight months is important; 
its mistakes showed the way to success; its expecta- 
tions brought gifts of cars, induced volunteers to 
come from America, and laid the basis upon which 
the present service is founded. 

A gift of ten Ford ambulances, whose bodies were 
made out of packing-boxes, enabled the American 
Ambulance, at the very outset of the war, to take 
part in the transport service, and as more and more 
donations were made small squads were formed in 
an attempt to enlarge the work. These squads, 
each of five cars, were offered for service with the 
armies, but owing to their inadequate size were in 
every case attached by the Government to existing 
5^vices well in the rear. So there were small squads 
at Saint-Pol, An;iiens, Paris Plage, Abb6ville, Mer- 
ville, and Hesdin, attached to British or French 

1 



FRIENDS OF FRANCE 

Sections, and they were engaged in evacuating hos- 
pitals, work which clearly could be better done by 
.the larger cars of Sanitary Sections already attached 
to these hospitals. 

In April, 1915, through the efforts of A. Piatt An- 
drew, who had then become Inspector of the Field 
Service, the French authorities made a place for 
American Ambulance Sections at the front on trial. 
A squad of ten ambulances was sent to the Vosges, 
and this group attracted the attention of their com- 
manding officers, who asked that it be increased by 
ten cars so as to form it into an independent Sani- 
tary Section. As soon as this was done, the unit 
took its place in conjunction with a French Section 
in an important Sector on the front in Alsace. 

With this initial success a new order of things be- 
gan, and in tlje same month a second Section of 
twenty cars was formed and was stationed, again in 
conjunction with an existing French service, in the 
much-bombarded town of Pont-a-Mousson. 

In the meantime, two squads of five cars each 
had been working at Dunkirk. These were now re- 
enforced by ten more and the whole Section was then 
moved to the French front in Belgium, with the re- 
sult that at the end of the month of April, 1915, the 
Field Service of the American Ambulance had really 
come into existence. It comprised three Sections of 
twenty ambulances, a staff car, and a supply car — 
Section Sanitaire Americaine N° 1, as it was called, 
stationed at Dunkirk; Section Sanitaire Americaine 

2 



THE ORGANIZATION OF THE SERVICE 

N° 2, stationed in Lorraine; and Section Sanitaire 
Americaine N^ 3, in the Vosges. 

The story of the next year is one of real achieve- 
ment, in which the three Sections emerged from the 
test with a record of having fulfilled the highest ex- 
pectations of proving their utility to France. Sec- 
tion 1, having given an excellent account of itself 
in the long-range bombardments and air-raids at 
Dunkirk, was rewarded by being intrusted with 
important work in Belgium at Coxyde, Nieuport, 
Poperinghe, Elverdinghe, Crombec, and other pastes 
de secours in that Sector of the French front. 

Section 2 had to win recognition in a region al- 
ready served by a French Sanitary Service and to 
which it was attached to do secondary work. The 
Section not only accomplished its own work, but 
made it possible for the French Section to be with- 
drawn, taking over the "posies de secours on the line, 
and finally becoming independently responsible for 
an area renowned for its continual heavy fighting. 

The record of Section 3 is slightly different. It 
first successfully took over the existing service, and 
then, pushing on, opened up to motor transport 
hitherto inaccessible mountain pastes de secours. 

With the three Sections thus established, it is in- 
teresting to note why they have been a recognized 
success so shortly after their possible usefulness was 
appreciated. 

In the first place, an admirable type of car was 
selected. Our light Ford ambulances, stationed as 

3 



FRIENDS OF FRANCE 

they were in Belgium, in Lorraine, and in Alsace, 
faced three separate transportation problems. At 
Dunkirk they found the mud no obstacle; at Pont- 
a-Mousson they outgeneralled the ravitaillement 
convoys; in the Vosges they replaced the mule. 
They were driven, too, by college men or men of the 
college type, who joined the service to be of use and 
who brought to the work youth and intelligence, 
initiative and courage. There have been to date in 
the Field Service 89 men from Harvard, 26 from 
Yale, 23 from Princeton, 8 from the University of 
Pennsylvania, 7 from Dartmouth, 6 from Columbia, 
4 from the University of Michigan, 4 from the Uni- 
versity of Virginia, 18 American Rhodes scholars 
from Oxford, and representatives of more than 
thirty other colleges and universities. Twenty-eight 
men have already been cited and awarded the croix 
de guerre. 

In November, 1915, at the request of General 
Headquarters, a fourth Section, made possible 
through the continued aid of generous friends in 
America, took its place in the field. In December, 
1915, Section 1 was moved to the Aisne. In Janu- 
ary, 1916, Section 3 was transferred to the Lorraine 
front, in February Section 2 was summoned to 
the vicinity of Verdun at the moment of the great 
battle, and in March definite arrangements for a 
fifth Section were completed. 

So April, 1916, finds the three old Sections still 
on duty at the front, the fourth already making its 

4 



THE ORGANIZATION OF THE SERVICE 

reputation there, and a fifth being fitted out. Con- 
fidence has been gained; we have learned our parts. 
The problem of the future is, first, to maintain effi- 
ciency, and at the same time to be ready to put more 
cars and more men in the field. Our vision is to play 
a larger role in behalf of France, and with the con- 
tinued cooperation of the donors of ambulances and 
the same spirit of sacrifice on the part of the men 
in the field, it should be realized.^ 

Stephen Galatti 

Assistant Inspector 

* Since the writing of this chapter three more Sections have gone into 
the field and an eighth is in process of formation. More than fifty Amer- 
ican colleges and universities have been represented, and more than fifty 
members of the service have received the Croix de Guerre or the Medaille 
Militaire, (November, 1916.) 




II 

AT THE BACK OP THE FRONT: DUNKIRK AND YPRES 

In June, 1915, it was the pride of the Section in 
Flanders, Section 1, to feel that it had come closer to 
war than any other division of the American Ambu- 
lance. In June, 1916, the point of pride is to know that 
those first intense experiences have long since been 
duplicated and eclipsed. The competitive principle 
does not enter, naturally; the significance is that in 
this twelvemonth the service of the Americans has 
been steadily extended and vitalized. And in at- 
tempting to express here something of the whole 
through one of its parts, I need only suggest that the 
initial adventure in the North, comprehending in a 
few crowded weeks a fairly full range of experience 
behind the lines, perhaps still stands as typical and 
illustrative of all the rest. 

In Dunkirk we witnessed, and within our powers 
tried to cope with, what yet remains, I believe, the 
most sensational artillery exploit in history. It is re- 
membered that the little cars of the Americans often 
ran those empty streets, and pursued those deafening 
detonations, alone. Here, at our base, we shared the 
life of a town under sporadic, but devastating, bom- 
bardment; forward, in Elverdinghe, we shared the 
life of a town under perpetual, and also devastating, 
bombardment; still further forward, in Ypres, we be- 

6 




DUNKIRK, MAY, 1915 



DUNKIRK AND YPRES 

held a town bombarded from the face of the earth 
in a single night. We shared no life here, nor yet in 
Nieuport, for there was none to share. In the salient 
around Ypres, we played for many days our small 
part in that vast and various activity forever going on 
at the back of the front. Here we saw and learned 
things not easily to be forgotten: the diverse noises 
of shells going and coming, of arrivees and departs; the 
stupendous uproar of the "duel" before the charge, 
which makes the deepening quiet of a run-back come 
like a balm and a blessing; the strange informality of 
roadside batteries, booming away in the sight of peas- 
ant families and every passer; the silence and the 
stillness, and the tenseness and the busyness, of night 
along the lines; the extreme difficulty of hiding from 
shrapnel successfully without a dugout; the equal 
difficulty of driving successfully down a shell-bitten 
road in darkness like ink; the glow against the sky of a 
burning town, and the bright steady dots of starlights 
around half the horizon; the constant straggle of the 
evicted by the field-ambulance's front-door, and the 
fast-growing cemetery at the back-door; the whine 
and patter of bullets by the pastes de secours and the 
business-like ripple of the machine-guns; the whir of 
Taubes, the practical impossibility of hitting them 
from the ground, and the funny little bombs some- 
times dropped by the same; the noises made by men 
gone mad with pain; the glorious quiet of men under 
the acetylene lamps of the operating-table; "crowd 
psychology,'* and why a regiment becomes a *'fight- 

7 



FRIENDS OF FRANCE 

ing machine," and how tender hearts are indurated 
with a toughening of the skin; the high prevalence of 
courage among the sons of men; drawbacks of sleep- 
ing on a stretcher in an ambulance; the unkemptness 
of Boche prisoners; life, death, and war, and the values 
and meanings thereof. 

Such things, as I know, passed into the experience of 
Section 1, in Flanders. And these things, and more, 
have similarly passed into the experience of scores of 
young Americans since, in their life and service be- 
hind the lines of France. 

It is the composite experience which the following 
pages narrate; it is the composite service which the 
mind holds to with most satisfaction. We were 
the Service Sanitaire Americaine: a proud title, and 
we wished, naturally, to invest it with the realest 
meaning. That in this year 1915-16, the American 
service has been rendered eflSciently and even valu- 
ably, this volume as a whole attests, I think. That it 
has been rendered with the requisite indifference to 
personal risk is also, I hope, supported by the record. 
A transient in the service, who by no means bore the 
burden and heat of the day, may be permitted, I 
trust, to say these necessary, or at least these inter- 
esting and pertinent, things with complete detach- 
ment. 

I remember the hour of Section I's "baptism of 
fire." We stood in the lee (or what we hoped was 
the lee) of the Petit Chateau at Elverdinghe, while 
German shells whistled over our heads and burst with 

8 



DUNKIRK AND YPRES 

a wicked crash about the little church, the typical 
target, a couple of hundred yards away. (What in- 
terest we felt when a fragment of shell, smoking hot, 
fell almost at our feet, and what envy of the man who 
gathered in this first memorable "souvenir"!) We 
were just down from Dunkirk; we were greener than 
the grass that blew; and that the novel proceedings 
were acutely interesting to us will never be denied. 
Perhaps each of us secretly wondered to himself if he 
was going to be afraid; certainly all of us must have 
wished, with some anxiousness, that those strange 
whistles and roars would turn themselves another 
way. And still, when the young Englishman who ran 
the ambulance service there appeared at that moment 
and asked for two cars to go down the road to Brielen 
(which was to go straight toward the trouble), it is 
pleasant to remember that there was no lack of vol- 
unteers, and two of my companions were cranking up 
at once. There was never any time later, I am sure, 
when the sense of personal danger was so vivid in the 
minds of so many of us together. 

Every ambulance-driver must have his bad quar- 
ters of an hour, no doubt — and some of the worst of 
them may concern, not himself at all, but his car or 
his wounded. And if it is said that these young Amer- 
icans, amateurs and volunteers, have acquitted them- 
selves well in sometimes trying circumstances, there 
is no intention to overemphasize this aspect of their 
service. A volume might be written on the devel- 
opmental reactions — all but mathemetical in their 

9 



FRIENDS OF FRANCE 

working — of war-time. Nor does it seem necessary 
to add that the risk of the ambulanciers, at the worst, 
is small in comparison with that of those whom they 
serve, and from whom in turn they get their inspira- 
tion — the intrepid youths in the trenches. 

We came to know these youths very well — the 
gallant and charming poilus who have so long carried 
the western front upon their shoulders. We sincerely 
admired them; and on them largely we formed our 
opinions of France, and of the war generally, and of 
war. 

From the standpoint of observation, indeed, — and 
doubtless it is observation one should try to record 
here, — I believe we all felt the peculiar advantage of 
our position to have been this, that we mingled with 
the soldiers on something like equal terms. We were 
not officers; we were not distinguished visitors dash- 
ing up in a staff -car for an hour of sight-seeing. We 
were rankers (so far as we were anything), and we 
were permanent; and in the necessities of our work, 
we touched the life of the common fighting man at 
every hour of the day and night, and under almost 
every conceivable circumstance. We were with the 
poilus in the hour of rout and disaster; we were with 
them in the flush of a victorious charge brilliantly 
executed. We crawled along roads blocked for miles 
with them, moving forward; we wormed into railroad 
stations swamped with the tide of their wounded. 
Now we heard their boyish fun, and shared their 
jokes in the fine free days off duty; and now we heard, 

10 




AN AMERICAN AMBULANCE IN FLANDERS 



DUNKIRK AND YPRES 

from the unseen well of the jolting car, their faint en- 
treaty, Doucement, doucement! We saw them dis- 
tressed by the loss of their precious sacs, or elated by 
the gift of a button or a cheese; we saw them again, in 
silence and the darkness beside the Yser, very quiet 
and busy, with the ping and whine of many rifles; and 
again we found them lying on straw in dim-lit stables, 
bloody and silent, but not defeated. Now they gave 
us tobacco and souvenirs, and told us of their gosses, 
and helped us tinker with our cars, about which some 
of them, mechanicians in happier days, knew so much 
more than we did; and now they died in our am- 
bulances, and sometimes went mad. We saw them 
gay, and we saw them gassed; we found them idling 
or writing letters on the running-boards of our cars, 
and we found the dark stains of their fading lives 
upon our stretchers; we passed them stealing up like 
stalwart ghosts to action, and we left them lying in 
long brown rows beside the old roads of Flanders. 

And to me at least it seemed that the dominant 
note and characteristic quality of the poilu, and all 
his intense activity, was just a disciplined matter-of- 
factness, a calm, fine, business-like efficiency, an utter 
absence of all heroics. Of his heroism, it is superfluous 
to speak now. My observation convinced me, indeed, 
that fortitude is everywhere more common and evi- 
dent, not less, than even rhapsodical writers have rep- 
resented. There seems literally no limit to the powers 
of endurance of the human animal, once he is put to 
it. Many writers have written of the awful groanings 

11 



FRIENDS OF FRANCE 

of the wounded. I must say that, though I have seen 
thousands of wounded, the groans I have heard 
could almost be counted upon the fingers of my hand. 
Only once in my experience do I remember seeing any 
signs of excitement or disorder. That was in the roads 
around Poperinghe, in the first threatening hours of 
the second battle of Ypres. Once only did I get any 
impression of human terror. And that was only a 
reminiscence, left behind by women and children in 
the tumbled empty houses of Ypres. But in all the 
heroism, unlimited and omnipresent, there is observed, 
as I say, little or no heroics. That entire absence of 
drum and fife, which strikes and arrests all beholders 
at the front, is significant and symbolic. These men 
muster and move forward to the risk of death almost 
as other men take the subway and go downtown to 
business. There are no fanfares at all, no grand ges- 
tures, no flourishes about the soul and "la gloire." 

It is true, no doubt, that the ambulance-driver views 
the scene from a somewhat specialized angle. His 
principal association is with the sequelae of war; his 
view is too much the hospital view. Yet, it must be 
insisted, he becomes quickly and strangely callous on 
these points; and on the whole would be less likely to 
overstress the mere horrors than someone who had 
not seen so much of them. On the other hand, as I 
have suggested, he has extraordinary opportunities 
for viewing war as a thing at once of many parts and 
of a marvellously organized unity. 

Personally I think that my sharpest impression 

12 



DUNKIRK AND YPRES 

of war as a whole came to me, not along the posies 
de secours or under the guns at all, but at the station 
place in the once obscure little town of Poperinghe, 
on the 23d of April, 1915. 

That, it will be remembered, was a fateful day. At 
five o'clock on the afternoon before (everybody was 
perfectly specific about the hour), there had begun 
the great movement now known as the Second 
Battle of Ypres (or of the Yser). The assault had be- 
gun with the terrifying surprise of poison-gas; the 
gas was followed by artillery attacks of a ferocity 
hitherto unequalled; Ypres had been wiped out in a 
few hours; the Germans had crossed the Yser. Thus 
the French and English lines, which were joined, had 
been abruptly pushed back over a long front. That 
these were anxious hours for the Allies, Sir John 
French's report of June 15 (1915) indicates very 
plainly, I think. But they were far from being idle 
hours. To-day the whole back country, which for 
weeks had swarmed with soldiers, was up. For miles 
around. Allied reserves had been called up from camp 
or billet; and now they were rushing forward to 
stiffen the wavering lines and stem the threatening 
thrust for the coast. 

At three o'clock on this afternoon, I stood in Rue 
d'Ypres, before the railway station in Poperinghe, 
and watched the new army of England go up. 
Thousands and thousands, foot and horse, supply 
and artillery, gun, caisson, wagon and lorry, the 
English were going up. All afternoon long, in an un- 

13 



FRIENDS OF FRANCE 

ending stream, they tramped and rolled up the Flem- 
ish highroad, and, wheeling just before me, dipped and 
disappeared down a side-street toward *'out there." 
Beautifully equipped and physically attractive — 
the useless cavalry especially ! — sun-tanned and 
confident, all ready, I am sure, to die without a 
whimper, they were a most likely and impressive- 
looking lot. And I suppose that they could have 
liad little more idea of what they were going into 
than you and I have of the geography of the nether 
regions. 

This was on my left — the English going up. And 
on my right, the two streams actually touching and 
mingling, the English were coming back. They did 
not come as they went, however. They came on their 
backs, very still and remote; and all that you were 
likely to see of them now was their muddy boots at 
the ambulance flap. 

Service Sanitaire as we were, I think Section 1 
never saw, before or since, such a conglomeration of 
wounded as we saw that day at Poperinghe. Here 
was the rail-head and the base; here for the moment 
were the Red Cross and Royal Army Medical Corps 
units shelled out of Ypres; here was the nervous 
centre of all that swarming and sweating back-of-the- 
front. And here, hour after hour, into and through 
the night, the slow-moving wagons, English, French, 
and American, rolling on one another's heels, brought 
back the bloody harvest. 

The English, so returning to Poperinghe gare, were 

14 



DUNKIRK AND YPRES 

very well cared for. By the station wicket a large 
squad of English stretcher-bearers, directed, I believe 
by a colonel of the line, was unceasingly and expertly 
busy. Behind the wicket lay the waiting English 
train, steam up for Boulogne, enormously long and 
perfectly sumptuous: a super-train, a hospital Pull- 
man, all swinging white beds and shining nickel. The 
French, alas, were less lucky that day. Doubtless the 
unimagined flood of wounded had swamped the gen- 
erally excellent service; for the moment, at least, 
there was not only no super-train for the French; 
there was no train. As for the bunks of the station 
warehouses, the hopital d' Svacuation, they were of 
course long since exhausted. Thus it was that 
wounded tirailleurs and Zouaves and black men from 
Africa, set down from ambulances, staggered unat- 
tended up the station platform, sat and lay anyhow 
about the concrete and the sand — no flesh- wounded 
hoppers these, but hard-punished men, not a few cff 
them struck, it was only too manifest, in the seat of 
their lives. This was a bloody disarray which I never 
saw elsewhere, and hope never to see again. Here, in- 
deed, there was moaning to be heard, with the hard 
gasp and hopeless coughing of the asphyxies. And 
still, behind this heavy ambulance, rolled another; 
and another and another and another. 

On my left was the cannon fodder going up; on my 
right was the cannon fodder coming back. The whole 
mechanics of war at a stroke, you might have said: 
these two streams being really one, these men the 

15 



FRIENDS OF FRANCE 

same men, only at slightly diifferent stages of their 
experience. But there was still another detail in the 
picture we saw that day, more human than the or- 
ganized machine, perhaps, and it seemed even more 
pathetic. 

Behind me as I stood and watched the mingling 
streams of soldiers, the little square was black with 
rSfugies. Farther back, in the station yard, a second 
long train stood steaming beside the hospital train, a 
train for the homeless and the waifs of war. And 
presently the gate opened, and these crowds, old men 
and women and children, pushed through to embark 
on their unknown voyage. 

These were persons who but yesterday possessed a 
local habitation and a name, a background, old ties 
and associations, community organization, a life. 
Abruptly severed from all this, violently hacked off 
at the roots, they were to-day floating units in a name- 
less class, droves of a ticket and number, refugies. I 
walked up the platform beside their crowded train. 
A little group still lingered outside: a boy, a weazened 
old man, and three or four black-clad women, simple 
peasants, with their household goods in a tablecloth 
— waiting there, it may be, for the sight of a familiar 
face, missed since last night. I asked the women 
where they came from. They said from Boesinghe, 
which the Germans had all but entered the night be- 
fore. Their homes, then, were in Boesinghe? Oh, no; 
their homes, their real homes, were in a little village 
some twenty kilometres back. And then they fixed 

16 



DUNKIRK AND YPRES 

themselves permanently in my memory by saying, 
quite simply, that they had been driven from their 
homes by the coming of the Germans in October 
(1914); and they had then come to settle with rela- 
tives in Boesinghe, which had seemed safe — until 
last night. Twice expelled and severed at the roots: 
where were they going now? I asked the question; 
and one of the women made a little gesture with 
her arms, and answered, stoically: "To France" — 
which was, as I consider, the brave way of saying, 
God knows. As the case seemed sad to me, I tried to 
say something to that effect; and, getting no answer 
to my commonplaces, I glanced up, and all the wo- 
men's eyes had suddenly filled with tears. 

And outside the English were still going up with a 
fine tramp and rumble, nice young clerks from Man- 
chester and green-grocers' assistants from Totten- 
ham Court Road. 

I have never forgotten that the very last soldier I 
carried in my ambulance (on June 23, 1915) was one 
whose throat had been quietly cut while he slept by a 
flying sliver of a shell thrown from a gun twenty-two 
miles away. But it will not do, I am aware, to over- 
emphasize the purely mechanical side of modern war, 
the deadly impersonality which often seems to char- 
acterize it, the terrible meaninglessness of its deaths 
at times. Ours, as I have said, was too much the 
hospital view. That the personal equation survives 
everywhere, and the personal dedication, it is quite 

17 



FRIENDS OF FRANCE 

superfluous to say. Individual exaltation, fear and 
the victory over fear, conscious consecration to an 
idea and ideal, all the subtle promptings and stark 
behavior by which the common man chooses and 
avows that there are ways of dying which transcend 
all life: this, we know, must have been the experience 
of hundreds of thousands of the young soldiers of 
France. And all this, beyond doubt, will one day be 
duly recorded, in tales to stir the blood and set the 
heart afire. 

And the fine flourish is not altogether wanting even 
now. As some offset to the impression of pure blood 
and tears, let me quote a document showing that the 
courage of France still sometimes displays itself with 
the dash of purple. Before me is a copy of the ofl5- 
cial proclamation of the Mayor of Dunkirk, posted 
through the town after the stunning surprise of the 
first bombardments. It runs as follows : — 



DUNKERQUOIS 

Les Bombardements que nous venons de suhir ont fait sur- 
tout des victimes dans les rues. 

Je recommande essentiellement aux habitants de 
s*abriier dans les caves voutees et de ne pas se fier meme h 
des harts de tir assez longs pour sortir. 

Dunkerquoisy nous avons a supporter les risques de la 
guerre, nous les supportons vaillamment. 

Notre ville pent avoir a payer son tribut au vandalisme 
de nos ennemis comme d'autres villes, nous garderons haut 

LES CCEURS. 

Les mines seules seront allemandes, la terre restera fran- 

18 



DUNKIRK AND YPRES 

gaiseet aprhlaviCTOiR^.nous nous retrouveronsPiAJBYOBrPQ, 

PLUS RESOLUS ET PLUS FIERS QUE JAMAIS. 

VIVE DUNKERQUE TOU JOURS ET VIVE LA FRANCE.^ 

And the best part of this ringing manifesto, as it 
seems to me, is that it is all quite true. Dunkirk will 
live long, and so will France; and after the victory 
the citizens will find themselves, we cannot doubt, 
prouder and more resolute than ever. 

In the immense burden which France is bearing, 
the sum of the service of the young Americans has 
been, of course, quite infinitesimal. As the most 
generous and sympathetic persons are always quick- 
est to appreciate the intentions of sympathy from 
others, it is pleasant to know that the French, char- 
acteristically, have not been unmindful of even this 
slight thing. But, it is truly said elsewhere, the real 
gainers from this relationship have been the Ameri- 
cans. Not only is this true; it seems to me there can 
be no surprise in it. There can be hardly any of these 

* [Translation] 

People of Dunkirk: 

The bombardments to which we have been subjected have caused many 
casualties in the streets. 

I most emphatically urge all persons to seek shelter in vaulted cellars, 
and not to trust even to intervals in the firing long enough to go out. 

People of Dunkirk, we have to put up with the hazards of war, and we 
are doing so courageously. 

Our city may have to pay its tribute to the vandalism of our foes, like 
other cities; we will keep our hearts serene and high. 

The ruins alone will be German, the soil will remain French, and after 
the Victory, we shall meet again, stronger, more determined, and prouder 
than ever. 

Vive Dunkirk forever, and Vive la France ! 

19 



FRIENDS OF FRANCE 

men who did not set out from home, however uncon- 
sciously, for his own good gain; hardly one who did 
not feel that if he could but touch this memorable 
making of history with however small a hand, if he 
could but serve in the littlest this so memorable cause, 
he would have a possession to go with him all his days. 
Quorum parva pars fuerunt; and — from the little 
Latin all schoolboys remember — hcec olim meminisse 
juvahit. This is theirs; and it is enough. But should 
any of them covet another reward than what they 
carry within themselves, I think they have it if this 
log-book of their Service seems to show that within 
their powers they have deserved the fine name here 
bestowed upon them, the Friends of France. 

Henry Sydnor Harrison 




r::-^ 



^^j>j^ 



Ill 

THE SECTION IN ALSACE RECONQUISE 

•*Mon corps k la terre, 
, Mon tme k Dieu, 

Mod coeur h la France." 

The trenches in this part of the Vosges are cut along 
the brows of heights which directly overlook the 
Rhine Valley. From these summits can be seen, be- 
yond the smoke which deepens the mist above the 
famous cities of Mulhouse and Colmar, the shadowy 
boundary of the Black Forest and the snow-topped 
mountains of Switzerland. A few yards behind the 
mouths of the communication trenches are the first 
dressing-stations, everywhere and always one of 
war's most ghastly spots. Paths make their way from 
these dressing-stations down the mountain-sides un- 
til they become roads, and, once they have become 
roads, our work begins. 

Nowhere else are foreign soldiers upon German 
soil. Nowhere else, from Ypres to Belfort, do the 
lines face each other in a mountain range of com- 
manding summits and ever-visible village-dotted 
valleys. Nowhere else can one study in history's 
most famous borderland both war and one of those 
problems in nationality which bring about wars. 
And surely nowhere else are Detroit-manufactured 
automobiles competing with Missouri-raised mules 

21 



FRIENDS OF FRANCE 

in the business of carrying wounded men over diazy 
roads. 

Until our light, cheap cars were risked on these 
roads a wounded man faced a ten-mile journey with 
his stretcher strapped to the back of a mule or put 
on the floor of a hard, springless wagon. Now he is 
carried by hand or in wheelbarrows from one half 
to two miles. Then in one of our cars there is a long 
climb followed by a long descent. And over such 
roads! Roads blocked by artillery convoys and 
swarming with mules, staggering likely as not be- 
neath a load of high-explosive shells! Roads so nar- 
row that two vehicles cannot pass each other when 
both are in motion! Roads with a steep bank on 
the one side and a sheer drop on the other! Roads 
where lights would draw German shells ! Roads even 
where horns must not be blown! 

Indeed, these roads seem to stand for our whole 
work. But they do not by any means represent our 
whole work, and it is necessary, if one wants to con- 
vey a comprehensive idea of our life, to begin at our 
base. This is a village twenty-five miles to the rear, 
but strategically located in relation to the various 
dressing-stations, sorting-points, base hospitals, and 
railheads which we serve, and, in this war of ship- 
ping-clerks and petrol, one of those villages which 
is as much a part of the front as even the trenches 
themselves. It is a "little, one-eyed, blinking sort 
of place." It is not as near to the fighting as some 
of us, particularly adventurous humanitarians fresh 

22 



THE SECTION IN ALSACE RECONQUISE 

from New York and Paris, desire. But, pictur- 
esquely placed on the banks of the Moselle and smil- 
ing up at the patches of hollow-streaked snow that, 
even in late July and August, stand out on the tops 
of the Ballon d 'Alsace and the Ballon de Servance, 
it is a lovely, long-to-be-remembered spot and every 
one in the Section quite naturally speaks of it as 
"home." 

We are billeted in some twenty-five households 
as if we were officers, although our rations are the 
rations of a common soldier and our Section rules are 
unfailingly to salute officers and even to make our- 
selves scarce in hotels and cafes frequented only by 
officers. Our lodgings range from hay-lofts to elec- 
trically lighted rooms; but the character of our wel- 
come is always the same — pleasant, cordial, to be 
counted upon — "You are doing something for France 
and I will do what I can for you." 

One of the fellows, for instance, is quartered over 
a cafe. It is a little place, dirty and unattractive. 
Before the war an American tourist dropping into 
this cafe would probably have been sold a bad grade 
of vin ordinaire and been charged too much for it. 
But the other day the chap who is billeted there was 
a little under the weather and I took his breakfast 
to him in his room. I found the cafe full of customers 
who had not been served. The woman of the house 
was upstairs giving her ambulancier americain a cup 
of that great Vosges remedy, linden tea. I inquired 
about lunch. But it was no use, there was nothing 



FRIENDS OF FRANCE 

for me to do. She was going to fix him some lunch 
if he felt like eating it, and his dinner, too. Was not 
her husband away fighting and had not her eldest 
son been marked down as missing ever since his 
company took a German trench last June? 

Perhaps it is not surprising that we should be so 
received in a town where we have been living now 
for six months, where we are the best patrons of the 
biggest hotel, the most valued customers of half the 
shops. But this hospitable reception is by no means 
confined to our base. Everywhere we meet with a 
courtesy and with a gratitude which bring with them 
a very satisfactory sense of doing something worth 
while and having it appreciated. 

Imagine, for instance, a small town surrounded 
by mountains that, sloping gently up from its main 
street and railway station, are checkered for some 
distance with houses, green fields, and straggly stone 
walls, while hidden in their tree-covered summits 
are trenches and batteries of 75's, and here and there 
hotels where before the war tourists stopped and to 
which now the wounded are carried. But on this 
day a thick gray mist hangs over the town like a 
half -lowered curtain. The guns rest because the gun- 
ners cannot see. The mist hides entirely the tops of 
the mountains, gives the generally visible houses 
and stone walls a dim, unshaped appearance, and 
makes hardly noticeable a procession of gray motor 
ambulances coming out from the tree-line and mak- 
ing their way down into the town. 




SUPPLIES FOR THE SOLDIERS BEING CARRIED ON MULES 
OVER THE VOSGES MTS. 




AT A VALLEY " POSTE " (MITTLACH) 



THE SECTION IN ALSACE RECONQUISE 

Around the railway station is a group of tem- 
porary tents, where the wounded are given by the 
ladies of the Croix Rouge a cup of coffee or a glass of 
citron and water before being packed into the train 
sanitaire to begin their long journey to the centre 
or south of France. The ambulances evacuating the 
hospitals draw up among these tents under the or- 
ders of the sergeant in charge. Four or five French 
ambulances arrive and are unloaded. Then a smaller 
car takes its place in the line. It has a long, low, 
gray body with two big red crosses painted on either 
side. Beneath the red crosses are the words "Ameri- 
can Ambulance," and a name-plate nailed to the 
front seat bears the words "Wellesley College." 

The driver, after clearly doing his best to make a 
smooth stop, gets down and helps in lifting out the 
stretchers. One of the wounded, as his stretcher is 
slid along the floor of the car and lowered to the 
ground, groans pitifully. He had groaned this way 
and sometimes even screamed at the rough places 
on the road. So the driver's conscience hurt him 
as he pulled some tacks out of his tires and waited 
for the sergeant's signal to start. It was his first 
day's work as an ambulancier. He could still see 
every rock and every rut in the last mile of the road 
he had just driven over and he wondered if he really 
had been as careful as possible. 

But he was saved from reproaching himself very 
long. An infirmier tapped him on the shoulder and, 
telling him that a hless^ wished to speak to him, led 

25 



FRIENDS OF FRANCE 

him to one of the tents. It was the man about whom 
he had been unhappy, now more comfortable, al- 
though evidently still suffering. 

"You are very kind, sir," he said in English that 
might have been in other circumstances quite good, 
and disclosing a lieutenant's galons as he gave his 
right hand to the driver. "You drive carefully. I 
know, for I have a car. I don't like to cry — but I 
have two broken legs — anything hurts me — but 
it is really decent of you fellows to come way over 
here — it really is trop gentil ..." And the driver 
went back to his car marvelling for the first of many 
times at the sense of sympathy which had made that 
pain-stricken officer think of him at all. 

One wet night not long ago, the writer was stopped 
en route by a single middle-aged soldier trudging his 
way along a steep road running from a cantonment 
behind the lines to the trenches. Embarrassed a 
little at first and pulling at his cap, this man said 
that he had heard in the trenches of the American 
Ambulance; that a friend had written back that he 
had been carried in one of them; that this was th^ 
first time that he had had an opportunity of shaking 
hands with one of the volontaires americains. Then, 
as I leaned over to say good-bye, he shook both my 
hands, offered me a cigarette, shook both my hands 
again, saying, "wne jolie voiture,'' and, pointing 
towards where in the black distance came the rum- 
ble of guns, "Perhaps you will bring me back to- 
morrow." 

26 



THE SECTION IN ALSACE RECONQUISE 

If that man, by the way, had asked me for a lift, 
as is usually the case when you are stopped like that 
on the road, my orders would have been to have re- 
fused him, to have said, ^^Cest dSfendu/' and to 
have driven on. The Hague Conventions forbid 
carrying any soldiers in ambulances except those 
who are wounded and those in the service sanitaire. 
It is, putting it mildly, unpleasant to have to refuse 
a man a ride when he is wearily facing a long walk 
and you are spinning by in an empty ambulance. It 
is doubly unpleasant when you feel that this man 
would do anything for you from pushing your car 
out of a ditch to sharing a canteen. And yet, when- 
ever we have to perform this disagreeable duty, 
the conversation usually ends with a ''Merci quand 
meme.'' 

Indeed, discipline in a French soldier seems to be 
able to maintain itself remarkably from within. 
Officers and men mingle probably more unrestrain- 
edly than in any army in the world. A soldier when 
talking to an officer does not stand at attention after 
the first salute. Privates and officers are frequently 
seen in the same room of a hotel or cafe, and some- 
times even have their meals in messes that are 
scarcely separated at all. But these encroachments 
upon military formalism seem to go no deeper than 
the frills of efficiency. Orders are obeyed without 
"reasoning why," and, as in all conscripjt armies, 
the machinery of punishment is evolved to uphold 
authority at all cost. Officers have wide and imme- 

27 



FRIENDS OF FRANCE 

diate powers of punishment, and the decisions of 
courts martial judging the graver offences are swift, 
severe, and highly dreaded. 

But, returning for the moment to Saint-Maurice, 
we park our cars in the public square, on a hillside, 
along the fence of the cure's yard and against the 
walls of an old church, where their bright red crosses 
flame out against the gray flaking stone, and, on a 
cold morning, it is always possible to save a lot of 
cranking by pushing them down the hill. About half 
the Section on any given day are to be found at the 
base and "in bounds," which means the square, the 
hotel where we have our mess, or the room where one 
is billeted. These men compose the reserve list, and 
are liable to be called at any minute when they must 
"roll," as we say, instantly. The rest of the Section 
are on duty in detachments of from one to eight 
ears and for periods of from twenty-four hours to 
a week at various dressing-stations, sorting-points, 
field hospitals, and so forth. The men on reserve are 
used to reinforce these places, to fill up quickly 
trains saniiaires, to rush to any one of a half-dozen 
villages which are sometimes shelled. 

Often, when the fighting is heavy, not a man or a 
car of Section 3 is to be found at Saint-Maurice. 
The repair car even will be driven to some crossroads 
or sorting-point where our ambulances bring the 
wounded from several dressing-stations. And Mr. 
Hill will be away in the staff car dropping in upon 
the widely separated places where his men are work- 

28 



THE SECTION IN ALSACE RECONQUISE 

ing to see that all is going well or to know the reason 
why. 

Mr. Lovering Hill, at the outbreak of the war, was 
practising law in New York City. He had been edu- 
cated at Harvard and in Switzerland, and, speaking 
French as well as English, and thoroughly imder- 
standing the French temperament and people, he 
immediately enlisted with the American Ambulance 
of Neuilly as a driver. In six months he was pro- 
moted to the rank of squad leader, and, since last 
July, ranking as a first Heutenant in the French army, 
he has been in charge of the work of Section Sani- 
taire N*' 3, succeeding Mr. Richard Lawrence, of 
Boston, who had been compelled to return to the 
United States. Mr. Hill believes in never letting the 
reins of discipline drag, and yet he gets along fa- 
mously with all except those who have a habit of 
recalling in some way that they are volunteers. 

A French lieutenant and an official interpreter 
are also attached to the Section. We are partly under 
the control of the Sanitary Service and partly of the 
Automobile Service. The French personnel are a 
link between the Automobile Service and our unit, 
and they are busy from morning until night keeping 
abreast of the required reports, for five-day reports 
must be made on the consumption of gasoline, the 
number of miles run, the number of woimded car- 
ried, the oil, carbide, and spare parts needed, the 
rations drawn, and, in great detail, any change in 
personnel, 

29 



FRIENDS OF FRANCE 

There are no orderlies or mecbanics attached to 
our Section and each driver is responsible for the 
upkeep and repair of his own car. We do as much 
of this work as possible in the square where we park 
our cars. So we patch tires, scrape carbon, and 
change springs while the church bell rings persist- 
ently and mournfully for masses and funerals and 
while the people who sit and watch us from their 
shop windows laugh at our language as much as if 
they understood it. 

In general charge of this work and of a blacksmith 
shop that we have turned into a workroom is a so- 
called Mechanical Department composed of the two 
drivers who know the most about automobiles. And 
so successfully has the system worked out that, lay- 
men though most of us be, none of our " Chinese Rolls 
Royces" or ** Mechanical Fleas" — as an English 
Red Cross corps in the neighborhood has nicknamed 
our Fords — has been so severely "punished" that 
its repair has been beyond the power of its driver in- 
structed and assisted by the Mechanical Department. 

We receive the one sou a day, which, in addition 
to allowances to wife, if any, and to children, if any, 
is the wage of a French poilu. We draw, as has al- 
ready been mentioned, an ordinary soldier's rations: 
plenty of nourishing but rather solid bread, which, 
with the date of its baking stamped upon it, comes 
in big round loaves that we hold against our chest 
and cut with our pocket knife in true poilu fashion; 
rice or potatoes, generally rice; coffee, sugar, salt, and 

30 




A "POSTE DE SECOURS" IN THE VALLEY OF THE FECHT 




SHARING MEALS AT A POSTE 



THE SECTION IN ALSACE RECONQUISE 

sometimes fresh meat, but ordinarily canned beef, 
called by the French private singe, or monkey meat. 
At our own request we get the cash equivalent of our 
wine and tobacco allowances, and this is used to help 
defray the expenses of having our food cooked and 
served in the best hotel the town offers. But with 
these exceptions — French tobacco especially may 
be put in the category of acquired tastes — we take 
and eat everything that is given to us with a very 
good grace. And although it is possible, especially 
at Saint-Maurice, to add variously and cheaply to 
this diet at one's own expense, it probably is a fact 
that those of the Section who, in a spirit of "playing 
the game" all the way through, have stuck to the 
rations weigh more and feel better than when they 
first took the field, in spite of the constant drenchings 
one gets and the stretches of work without sleep. 

The hours of our meals — served by the untiring, 
red-cheeked Fanny — are a little more American 
than military for those taking their turn on the re- 
serve list "at home." But Mr. Hill's rule requires 
mihtary punctuality on penalty of washing the dirti- 
est car in the square. This is also the punishment 
inflicted upon any one who does not get his car 
properly ready for morning inspection, who is not 
in his room by nine o'clock, who has any trouble on 
the road from an insufficient supply of "gas" or oil, 
who is tardy in handing in reports, or breaks in any 
way the rules from time to time posted in the mess- 
room. 

31 



FRIENDS OF FRANCE 

"In a word, you are military and not military, 
but I am going to pay you the greatest compliment 
in my power, by treating you as I would any French 
soldiers under my command," the Commandant in 
charge of the Automobile Service of the army to 
which we are attached said to us on one occasion. 
And it has been the clear purpose of our two chiefs 
— first Mr. Lawrence and now Mr. Hill — to live 
up to the responsibilities of that compliment. This 
is mainly done by example and through the force of 
a very real esprit de corps, but washing another man's 
car has been found a useful daily help for daily dis- 
ciplinary needs. 

Away from our base, in our nomadic dressing- 
station-to-hospital existence, we are often pretty 
much "on our own." This part of our life begins in 
a valley reached through a famous pass. Starting 
from the valley of the Moselle easy grades along a 
splendid highway crowded with trucks, staff cars, 
wine carts, and long lines of yellow hay wagons, 
bring one to a tunnel about three hundred yards in 
length. In the middle of this tunnel is a low white 
marble stone with a rounded top that until a year 
ago last August marked the boundary between 
France and Germany. To an American driving an 
automobile in the dim tunnel light this stone is sim- 
ply something not to be hit. To the French who 
have fought so bravely that it may no longer stand 
for a boundary it is a sacred symbol. I have seen the 

32 



THE SECTION IN ALSACE EECONQUISE 

eyes of returning wounded glisten at the sight of it. 
I have heard companies of chasseurs, as they passed 
it going to the trenches, break into singing or whis- 
thng their famous Sidi-Brahim march. 

Beyond this tunnel the road, wrapping itself 
around the mountain like a broad, shining ribbon, 
descends into a fertile commercial valley in sweep- 
ing curves sometimes a kilometre long: on one side 
are high gray rocks where reservists seem to hang 
by their teeth and break stones; on the other, a sheer 
drop into green fields, behind the tunnel-pierced 
summit, in front the red-roofed houses of several 
Alsatian villages nestling against yet another line of 
mountain-tops. And along this road we have made 
our way at midnight, at daybreak, in the late after- 
noon, running cautiously with wounded and run- 
ning carelessly empty. We are at home, too, in the 
villages to which it leads, with the life-size portrayals 
of the Crucifixion that are everywhere, even in fields 
and nailed to trees in the mountains, with the gray 
stone churches and their curious onion-shaped towers 
and clamorous bells. 

The appearance of an American Ambulance in the 
villages is no longer a novelty, sentries let us pass 
without a challenge, school children do not any 
more rush over to us at recess time, or soldiers crowd 
around us and say to one another, " Voild la voiture 
americaine,*' And we have friends everywhere: the 
officer who wants to speak English and invites us 
so often to lunch with him, the corporal of engineers 

33 



FRIENDS OF FRANCE 

who was a well-known professor, the receiving ser- 
geant who was a waiter at the Savoy Hotel in Lon- 
don, the infirmier who was in charge of the French 
department of one of the largest of New York's pub- 
lishing houses. 

But cooks are the people we cultivate the most 
assiduously. It is forbidden to leave your car and 
eat in a cafe. Besides, the time of day when we are 
hungriest is the time — maybe midnight or early 
morning — when no cafes are open or when we are 
marooned on some mountain-top. For single cars 
and small wandering detachments there are only 
informal arrangements for "touching" rations. So 
we depend upon the good-will of the chief cooks and 
we seldom go hungry. But the stanchest sustainer 
of every American Ambulance driver presides over 
the kitchen of the largest sorting-point in the valley. 
We call this cheery-voiced, big-hearted son of the 
Savoy mountains, who before the war washed auto- 
mobiles in Montmartre, "Le Capitaine," "Joe Caw- 
thorne," "Gunga Din." He is never tired or out of 
spirits. He never needs to sleep. It will be a rush 
period. We will leave our ambulances only to get 
gasoline, oil, and water while the wounded are being 
discharged. "Le Capitaine," too, will be up to his 
neck in work, cooking a meal for a hundred people, 
hurrying out at the midecin chefs order, soup for 
thirty and tea for twenty more — and still he will 
find time to run out to our cars with a cup of coffee 
and a: slicfe of chfe^esfe. The only ocda^^on on record 

34 



THE SECTION IN ALSACE RECONQUISE 

of anything from "Joe Cawthorne" but a word and 
a smile of cheer was once when one of the fellows, 
who felt that to his coffee he owed his escapes from 
sleeping at the wheel and running off the bank, and 
therefore his life, returned to America, first giving 
"Le Capitaine " an envelope with some money in it. 
** Jamais, jamais, ^^ he said, returning the envelope 
and viciously picking some flies out of his coffe chau- 
dron. 

There is no place like the front for the Long Arm 
of Coincidence to play pranks. I have known two 
university football stars to meet for the first time 
since their gridiron days on a shelled curve of a nar- 
row road — each in charge of an ambulance and each 
down in the road driving some wandering cows out 
of their way. I have known two young men to cele- 
brate the Fourth of July on their voyage over to do 
ambulance work, in a way that drew forth the gentle 
rebukes of a Protestant minister who happened to 
be a passenger on the same boat. They left him on 
the docks at Liverpool and, along with his advice, 
he passed out of their minds until two months later 
one of them met him in a general's car in Alsace. 
He stopped and told this fellow that he was preaching 
a series of sermons at the front and invited him to 
come and hear him the next Sunday in a near-by 
town, adding that among other things he thought 
he would touch upon the question of "War and 
Temperance." 

Speaking of the Fourth of July reminds me that 

35 



FRIENDS OF FRANCE 

on the national French hohday of the Fourteenth of 
July, I saw General Joffre in never-to-be-forgotten 
circumstances. He was spending this day in Alsace, 
and when early that morning I approached a little 
village in an empty ambulance, I was stopped by a 
sentry and, after being asked if I had wounded 
aboard, told that General Joffre was making a 
speech in the town square and that I would have 
to wait until he had finished before I could get 
through. 

Of course I at once left my ambulance and ran to 
the square, knowing how rarely one ever saw quota- 
tion marks after the Generalissime's name. I was, 
however, too late to hear what he had to say, for, 
laconic as ever, he had finished speaking when I came 
within earshot. Opposite a gray brick church was a 
line of eight flag-bedecked automobiles, six for the 
G6neralissime and his staff and two for emergencies 
which, I am told, is the way he always travels. Gen- 
eral Joffre himself, standing on the ground and sur- 
rounded by officers ablaze with decorations, was 
listening to fifty little Alsatian girls singing the 
"Marseillaise." They were finishing the last verse 
when I arrived, and when their sweet childish voices 
no longer rang out in contrast to the brilliant but 
grim surroundings. General Joffre, stepping out from 
among his officers, held one of the prettiest of the 
little girls high in his powerful arms and kissed 
her twice. The next day driving through this town 
again I noticed the following sign : — 

36 



THE SECTION IN ALSACE RECONQUISE 

Le General Joffee, 

Generalissime des Armees de la R^publique 

a dejeune dans cette maison. 

Le 15^"^® Bataillon de Chasseurs Alpins occupant cette region. 

Delivree par lui le 7 Aout 1914. 

Alsace has been for forty years German territory. 
For forty years young Alsatians have been forced to 
learn German in the schools, to serve in the German 
army, to be links in the civil and military chains 
which bound them to the Kaiser's empire. A few 
days ago I took the photograph of an Alsatian girl 
standing in the doorway of her home, which she said 
she was going to send through Switzerland to her 
brother in the German army "somewhere in Rus- 
sia." But French hearts doubtless beat under many 
a German uniform, and those of us who have lived 
in Alsace are confident that re-annexation by France 
will not be a slow or a difficult process. Alsace has 
been tied to France by something which forty busy 
years have not found a way to change. The armies 
of the Republic have been received with an open 
hand and an open heart. I know of a fine field hospi- 
tal organized and staffed entirely by Alsatian ladies 
happy to be nursing wounded French soldiers. I 
know of Alsatian boys, at the outbreak of the war 
not yet old enough to have commenced their Ger- 
man military training, who are to-day volunteer, and 
only volunteer, French soldiers. 

We have drawn our impressions of Alsace chiefly 
from five or six towns in a commercial valley. They 
are subject to long-range shelling and bombs dropped 

37 



FRIENDS OF FRANCE 

from aeroplanes. Indeed, my first day in Alsace was 
spent in the yard of a hospital contrived out of a 
schoolhouse. Our cars were parked beneath the win- 
dows of one of its wings, and all day long one heard 
the pitiful moans of a mother and her two little 
daughters who had been wounded the night before 
when the Germans had dropped half a dozen shells 
into the town where they lived. 

But these towns seem to be, on the whole, cheer- 
ful, prosperous places. Soldiers resting from the 
trenches flirt the time away with bilingual Alsatian 
girls. Horns, claxons, and the hum of motors make 
in the little mountain-smothered streets the noises 
of Broadway or Piccadilly. The cafes and stores are 
full from morning until eight o'clock, when all lights 
must be put out. 

Nothing is taken by the soldiery without being 
paid for, a fact that was brought sharply home to 
me on one occasion. We needed wood for the kitchen- 
fire of a little dressing-station hidden on a tree-cov- 
ered mountain-top. I picked up an axe and started 
to get some exercise and the wood for the fire at the 
same time; but the cook excitedly told me that not 
even in that out-of-the-way place, unless he had the 
proper military authorization, would he dare cut 
down a tree, because the commune must be paid 
for, every twig of it. 

But, interesting as these towns are, it is beyond 
them that we do our most useful work. I am writ- 

38 



THE SECTION IN ALSACE RECONQUISE 

ing, as it happens, at a dressing-station between the 
artillery and the infantry lines where two of our cars 
are always on duty. The driver of the other car, 
eight months ago, was in charge of a cattle ranch in 
the Argentine, and last May, a passenger on the ill- 
fated Lusitania, was rescued after four hours in the 
water. He is on his back tightening bolts underneath 
his car, and a hole in the left sole of his projecting 
shoes tells of hours with the low ^peed jammed on, 
for this is the way we have to drive down as well as 
up hill. 

We are at one end of a valley which, opening grad- 
ually, runs into the basin of the Rhine. Our two 
ambulances are backed up against a hay-loft dress- 
ing-station among a little group of houses frequently 
mentioned in the communiques. At this minute the 
place is as peaceful as any Florida glade; it does not 
seem possible that war can be so near, so completely 
hushed. There is little military in the appearance 
of a few stretcher-bearers, dressed in the discarded 
clothes of peace, throwing stones into an apple tree; 
there is not a gun to be seen; there is not a sound to 
be heard unless you listen to catch the splash of a 
mountain stream or the tinkle of the bells tied 
around the necks of the cows grazing high up on a 
green but ladder-steep mountain-side. Coming down 
the road towarels me is a little barefooted boy driv- 
ing a half-dozen cows to where some girls are waiting 
in a pen to milk them. A little later, when my com- 
panion and I sit down to dinner with the young 

39 



FRIENDS OF FRANCE 

medecin auxiliaire in charge of the post, there will 
be some of this milk on the table. 

But long before dinner-time the whole surrounding 
aspect may change as if by black magic. Tree-hidden 
batteries, some only a hundred yards away and some 
on the tops of neighboring and surrounding moun- 
tains, may speak together with their "brutal lungs" 
until the echoes, rolling and accumulating, make a 
grand, persistent roar. Even trench-weary soldiers 
will unconsciously duck their heads and stand ready 
to run to the bomb-proofs if the answering German 
shells begin to fall close to them. After dark the 
wounded will arrive, carried on stretchers, rested on 
men's shoulders, or pushed in wheelbarrows, to the 
hay-loft where a doctor, working almost entirely 
without anaesthetics, treats such cases as the doc- 
tors in the trench dressing-stations passed without 
attention. 

By this time also, on a night when many wounded 
are arriving, six or eight more American ambulances 
will be summoned by telephone. There will be no 
headlights used; only a great swinging of lanterns 
and much shouting back and forth in French and 
English. Although the firing after dark will not be 
so general, one or two batteries will continue to break 
out sharply every few minutes. One of our squad 
leaders will be on hand as driver ift charge of the 
situation. "Are you ready to roU.^^" he will call to 
somebody as the doctor comes up and speaks to him. 
A dark figure standing by a car will lean over and 

40 



THE SECTION IN ALSACE RECONQUISE 

spin a crank, an engine will sputter and pour forth 
smoke, for we must use a double supply of oil on 
these grades. Then an ambulance will back up to 
the door of the barn and the driver, leaving his en- 
gine throttled down, will help in lifting the stretch- 
ers. 

To go from this place to the sorting-point behind 
the lines to which the wounded are taken is the worst 
run we have. It means almost always wondering if 
your car will make the grades, if you acted prop- 
erly in letting yourself be persuaded to take three 
wounded instead of the specified two. It means 
coming upon comrades en panne and lending a hand 
or hurrying on with the distress signal, stopping to 
pour water into your boiling radiator, halting to 
pass convoys, arguments, decisions, ^' noms-de-DieUy" 
backing to a wider place, wheels that nearly go over 
the edge, pot-bellied munition-wagons that scrape 
off your side boxes, getting into a ditch and having 
to be pulled out by mules or pushed out by men. 

It is a journey fraught with worry, for there is 
always the danger of delay when delay may mean 
death and is sure to mean suffering for the wounded 
in your car. And sometimes when, with bad cases 
aboard, you are stuck and can't get out until some- 
body turns up to help you, it is imbearable to stay 
near your car and hear their pitiful groans. 

But the down part of the journey is full of more 
acute dangers. You are at the mercy of your brakes. 
If they fail you, there is only the bank. A quick turn 

41 



FRIENDS OF FRANCE 

of the steering-wheel and you are all right; that is, 
there will be only a cruel shaking-up for the men you 
are carrying and a broken radius rod or perhaps a 
smashed radiator. But this is better than going over 
the bank and better than running amuck through 
a train of mules with their deadly loads of explosives. 

Only during the last two months have we been 
able to use the first ten kilometres of this road at all. 
Even now for the climbing part of the journey we 
take none but the more seriously wounded, leaving 
the rest to be carried in light wagons pulled by mules, 
until they get to some mountain-top relay-point 
where our cars are stationed. Most of these relay- 
points are very close to one or several French batter- 
ies. Some of them are established in the midst of 
thriving cantonments buried in the woods and with- 
in sight of the German trenches on a sister mountain- 
top. Others, farther removed from the enemy lines 
and higher above the level of destruction, are on sum- 
mits suitable only for the biggest of the French guns 
and reached in turn only by the very long-range Ger- 
man guns. 

Such a place is a mountain-top at which we feel 
almost as much at home as at our base, for eight of 
our cars are always on duty at this place, each man 
serving for a week at a time, and one man being re- 
lieved every day. It is one of those plateau-shaped 
eminences which are mentioned in geographies as 
distinguishing the Vosges from the Alps and the 
Pyrenees. It is treeless through exposure to the 

42 



THE SECTION IN ALSACE RECONQUISE 

wind, and its brow slopes gradually towards the 
French side, with a succession of cuplike hollows 
tenanted by brush-covered bomb-proofs and dug- 
outs and horse-sheds. Other than topographical 
concealments are also employed; gray horses are 
dyed brown and groups of road-builders when at 
work in some particularly exposed place carry, like 
the army that went against Macbeth, umbrellas of 
branches. 

We are housed here in a long, low shack built 
against the side of the crest. Violent storms some- 
times take the roof off this shack with the conse- 
quent drenching of the surgeon in charge, ourselves, 
a half-dozen stretcher-bearers and as many mule- 
drivers. Bunks are built crosswise against the side 
of the walls, and over some of these bunks the words 
"Pour Intransportahles^* are written. The rest, how- 
ever, are occupied by people on duty here, for it is 
merely a relay-point, and the wounded, imless un- 
able to stand a further journey or arriving by mules 
in numbers greater than we can handle, are merely 
changed from one mode of conveyance to another 
and given such attention in passing as they may need. 

When one of the beds for intransportables is occu- 
pied, it generally means that the man dies in a few 
days and is buried close by, a corporal of stretcher- 
bearers, who was before the war a Roman Catholic 
missionary in Ceylon, borrowing from one of us a 
camera to take for the dead man's family a photo- 
graph of the isolated grave marked with one of those 

43 



FRIENDS OF FRANCE 

simple wooden crosses from which no mile of north- 
ern France is free. Deaths of this sort are peculiarly 
sad. Anybody who has nursed in the wards of a 
military hospital will tell you how soldiers, seasoned 
in trenches that high explosives and mines and 
hand-grenades have turned into shambles, will grow 
gloomy when one man in their ward dies. It is the 
same way with these single deaths and lonely funer- 
als at the front 

Generals, of course, stand for the "larger issues'* 
of the war; it is their decisions that figure in to-mor- 
row's communiques. But at the front, doctors repre- 
sent destiny in a much more picturesque way: it is 
no use putting these blessSs in an ambulance; death 
will close over them quite as gently here as twenty 
kilometres farther to the rear. This man's rheuma- 
tism demands that he be sent to Lyons or Mar- 
seilles; that one has five days in a base hospital 
and is in the trenches for the next death revel. A 
businesslike surgeon pronounces his judgments in a 
ghastly poste de secours, — it is nothing compared 
with "strategical necessities," — it will have no 
place beside announcements of yards of trenches 
taken and yards of trenches lost, ■ — and yet, it is life 
or death for some brave soldier and all in the world 
that counts for some family circle. 

These mountain-tops are often for weeks on end 
bathed in a heavy mist varied by rainstorms. At 

44 



THE SECTION IN ALSACE RECONQUISE 

such times when there is no work to do, — and 
very frequently there are no wounded to carry for 
twenty-four hours or more, — the surgeon, our- 
selves, the brancardiers, and the mule-drivers, close 
in around the stove. One of these brancardiers, 
or stretcher-carriers, was transferred after being 
wounded at the battle of the Marne from the front- 
line troops to the Service Sanitaire, and before the 
war he had served five years in the Foreign Legion 
in Africa. His stories of this period are endless and 
interesting, and, after listening to them for a week, 
we all go back to our base calling soldiers nothing 
but poilus; coffee, jus; wine, jrinard; canned beef, 
singe; army organization, sysieme D. There is also a 
good deal of reading done by many of the Section 
on the rainy days of no work. It is part of the daily 
relieving man's unofficial but well-understood duties 
to bring along any magazines and newspapers that 
he can get hold of, and generally, too, books gradu- 
ally accumulate and grow to be considered as a sort 
of library that must not be taken away. Indeed, 
at one poste de secours our library consists at present 
of two or three French novels and plays, "The New- 
comes," a two- volume "Life of Ruskin," "Tess of 
the D'Urbervilles," and "Les Miserables." 

When a group of men are on duty at an isolated 
poste de secours like this, they take turns in carry- 
ing the wounded who may arrive, the man who has 
made the last trip going to the bottom of the list. 

45 



FRIENDS OF FRANCE 

And there is something comfortable about feeling 
that you are the last to "roll" on a stormy night 
when every plank in the little hut rattles and groans, 
when the wind shrieks in the desolate outside, when 
the sinister glare of the trench rockets gleams 
through the heavy blackness like a flash of lightning, 
and the wet mule-drivers who borrow a little of your 
fire shake their heads and pointing towards the road 
say, " Un mauvais chemin,'* And then, as you settle 
a little deeper in your blankets and blow out your 
lantern and assure yourself for the last time as to 
where your matches are and how much gasoline you 
have in your tank, you are pretty apt to think, be- 
fore you go to sleep, of the men a little way off in 
the rain-soaked trenches. 

They are certainly not very far away. Only over 
there on the next ridge where the shells are explod- 
ing. They have been there, you know, without relief 
for ten days. You remember when they marched 
up the mountain to take their turn. How cheery 
and soldierlike they were! Not one of them, like 
you, is sleeping in blankets. They won't, like you, 
go back to-morrow to a pleasant dinner, with pleas- 
ant friends, in a pleasant hotel, and out of sound, 
too, of those awful guns. Some will come back and 
you will carry them in your ambulance. And some 
will never come back at all. Well . . . 

"Did I leave that spark-plug wrench under the 
ear? God knows I can never find it on a night like 
this and I change a plug every trip!" 

46 



THE SECTION IN ALSACE RECONQUISE 

"Wake up! Don't talk in your sleep I" 
"What, is it my turn to roll? Wounded?" 
"No, Steve is en panne halfway down the moun- 
tain." 

And you begin to take things in with one of the 
Section's sous-chefs leaning over your cot with the 
news that the first man on the list has a load of 
wounded and has met with an accident. The others 
are waked up too. Some are left to take care of such 
other wounded as may arrive and the rest form a res- 
cue party. Two ride in the rescue ambulance; two 
more probably walk. The wounded are moved from 
the broken-down car to the other ambulance, and 
then daylight finds three or four of us rain-drenched 
and mud-smeared, changing a brake-band or digging 
into a carburetor. 

The arrival of the relieving car at one of those posts 
on a rainy day, when every one of us is to be found 
within twenty feet of the stove, means a demand in 
chorus for mail and after that for news, especially 
Section gossip from Headquarters, which means who 
has had to wash cars and who has broken down en 
route. 

"Number 52 runs like a breeze now. I drove it 
yesterday and it climbed the col on high with two 
wounded," the newcomer will say, producing some 
contribution to the mess. 

"And last night, there was a call for three cars at 
midnight. Did n't any of the wounded come this way? 

47 



FRIENDS OF FRANCE 

So-and-So had magneto trouble bringing back his 
first load. He said Henry Ford himself could not have 
started the boat. So the repair car went out at four 
o'clock this morning." 

"That boy certainly has his troubles. Do you re- 
member the time he had two blow-outs and four 
punctures in twenty-four hours and then had all his 
brake-bands go at once? It was two miles he ran to 
get another car to take his wounded." 

"He looked low when he came in about breakfast 
time," somebody else will put in. 

"I tell you he will use too much oil. It goes 
through these old cars like a dose of salts," a third 
will add. 

On bad days the discussion will go on this way un- 
til time for the next meal. But on clear days during 
summer and early autumn weather, we have stayed 
indoors very little. The air is champagne-like and the 
view on all sides magnificent. It is possible, also, from 
a number of these eminences to follow in a fascinating 
fashion the progress of artillery duels, and, with a 
good pair of glasses, even to see infantry advancing 
to the attack. When the cannonading is heavy the 
whole horizon pops and rumbles and from the sea of 
green mountains spread out before you rise puffs of 
shrapnel smoke, flaky little clouds about the size of a 
man's hand and pale against the tree-tops, as one 
thinks of death as pale. They hover » sometimes too 
many at a time to count, above the mountains and 
then sink down again into the general greenness. The 

48 



THE SECTION IN ALSACE RECONQUISE 

sky, too, is generally dotted with these same little 
flaky clouds when aeroplanes are abroad. And aero- 
planes are abroad every fair day, for they are seldom 
or never hit and brought down, although the anti-air- 
craft guns, especially when hedging them in with 
"barrier fire," seem to limit their activities. 

Soldiers, as I have said, march by these posts on 
their way to and from the trenches. Whenever they 
are allowed to break ranks near our cars they crowd 
around us with little bottles in their hands asking for 
gasoline to put in cigarette lighters which they make 
out of German bullets. Most of these men belong to 
battalions of Chasseurs Alpins, and I do not suppose 
there are any finer soldiers in the world than those 
stocky, merry-eyed men from the mountain prov- 
inces of France, with their picturesque caps and 
their dark-blue coats set off by their horison-blue 
trousers. They are called, indeed, the "blue devils," 
and when the communiques say, "After a heavy shell- 
ing of some of the enemy heights in the Vosges our 
infantry advanced to the attack and succeeded in 
taking so many of the enemy trenches," it is probably 
the Chasseurs Alpins who have led the way in the 
face of the hand-grenades and machine-gun fire and 
the streams of burning oil that, in this country es- 
pecially, make the "meaning of a mile" so terrible. 

One of our Section who was compelled to return to 
America the other day took with him as his single 
keepsake a crumpled photograph with a signature 

49 



FRIENDS OF FRANCE 

scrawled in one corner. It was of a sous-officier of a 
famous battalion of Chasseurs Alpins. His heavy- 
pack was jauntily thrown over his shoulders; his ber- 
ret was rakishly tilted to one side; and on his breast 
gleamed the green and red ribbon of the Croix de 
Guerre, the crimson of the LSgion d^Honneur, and the 
yellow of the MSdaille Militaire. 

You could find no better symbol of the laughing 
gallantry, the sturdy strength, and the indomitable 
courage of France. 

Preston LocS:wood 




CHA55EV]lALPrN 1315 



IV 

LAST DAYS IN ALSACE 

By December 20, the approximate date of the begin- 
ning of the French attack upon the German positions 
on Hartmannsweilerkopf, the headquarters of Sec- 
tion 3 of the American Ambulance had been moved 
temporarily to a place called Moosch. Here was lo- 
cated a large modern hospital to which the wounded 
were brought from the dressing-stations in the moun- 
tains, two or three kilometres behind the lines of ad- 
vance trenches. From this hospital the blesses were 
moved into the interior as fast as their condition 
would permit. It was the duty of the small American 
Ford ambulances to bring the wounded from these 
mountain stations down to the hospital at Moosch. 
Moosch, a typical Alsatian town, consisting of a 
few large buildings, the "Mairie," the church, a 
hotel or two, and perhaps a weaving mill, about 
which are clustered the homes and stores and caf 6s or 
combination of these latter, is situated in the valley 
of the riv«r Thur. This valley runs up, and west or 
slightly north of west, to the divide, between the 
Moselle River and the Thur, this divide making the 
old boundary between French and German territory; 
and down in a south of east direction until the moun- 
tains end and we enter the plain that forms part of 
the drainage basin of the Rhine. Moosch is about 

51 



FRIENDS OF FRANCE 

halfway down this valley and about twelve kilo- 
metres from the front, which was on the last row of 
hills before the beginning of this plain. 

The valley itself ranges from one to two kilo- 
metres in width and the green forest-clad mountains 
rise on each side to a height of three hundred to four 
hundred metres. In the floor of the valley were 
orchards, open fields, and small towns. Down the 
centre of it was the broad road which continued up 
and over the divide into France. It formed, aside 
from an aerial tramway that the French constructed 
over the divide especially for this war, the only 
avenue of traffic for the supplies of ammunition, 
guns, food, etc., for the armies that were situated 
in this district. As a consequence it was night and 
day a scene of activity throughout its entire length. 
Down the valley this road had two important 
branches, one at a point six kilometres from Moosch 
and another at eight. Both these branches followed 
the course of small creeks that feed the river Thur, 
up and up the small valleys through which the 
streams flowed, then turned up the mountain-side 
and climbed to the top of one of the larger hills. 
One route was used for traffic ascending, the other 
for all descending, except for any that was required 
by Red Cross Stations or artillery posts along the 
way. In this manner much passing of the up and 
down streams of wagons, mules, motor trucks, etc., 
which would have been well-nigh impossible on these 
steep, narrow roads, was avoided. 

52 



LAST DAYS IN ALSACE 

On the mountain-top was a small space, some- 
what cleared of the forest growth, where three roads 
met, two that have already been mentioned and an- 
other that went over one shoulder of the mountains 
and down to an advance poste de secours, practically 
under Hartmannsweilerkopf itself. In one angle of 
the "Y" formed by these roads were a few roughly 
constructed buildings for taking care of the wounded, 
cooking, etc, and in another nothing but the steep 
slope of the mountain with a cabin or two tucked 
close against it amid the pine woods. In the last 
angle was a small graveyard where lay the men who 
had died from wounds there at the station or had 
been killed during the bombardment of some local 
artillery post or of the road. Next to this graveyard 
was a limited parking-space for the ambulances, and 
beyond this the cosy little building, the poste de SC" 
cours, where the French stretcher-bearers and Amer- 
ican drivers ate and slept together when not at work. 

This place was popular among the Americans, at 
first, at least, before the Germans captured a colonel 
with telltale maps upon his person, and their guns 
began to find and make uninhabitable a spot that 
had once seemed a secure retreat. Up in the fresh 
air and ozone of the pine woods, it was hard, in spite 
of the graveyard near by and the ever-passing stream 
of ammunition wagons or pack trains, not to think 
of this place as a pleasant vacation ground. The 
Frenchmen, too, were wonderful companions, play- 
ful as boys of ten, and kind and generous to a fault. 

53 



FRIENDS OF FRANCE 

After a snowstorm, unless there was a great. deal of 
work, there was sure to be a tremendous snow battle 
in progress, and the Frenchmen, old territorials 
some of them, forty to fifty to sixty years of age, 
would be as hard after one another as boys in their 
mimic wars. Their generosity went so far as surren- 
dering their bunks to the Americans while they slept 
out in the ambulances. At times the little poste de 
secours would be a scene of revelry, the professional 
entertainer taking part in the programme of the 
evening with the country songster. More often, 
however, the Frenchmen were busy and the Ameri- 
cans would amuse themselves with some deep, pro- 
tracted argument or read the latest book on the war 
that some kind friend had sent to a member of the 
Section. At night the little hut had its bunks filled 
to overflowing, but sleeping was generally good, un- 
less your bedfellow happened to be a soldier dream- 
ing of battle or a mule-driver dreaming of swearing 
at his mules. At night there were always one or two 
interruptions, especially whenever an ambulance- 
driver was wanted. Those who were sent to call him 
always succeeded in waking the whole lot of sleepers 
before finding the man whose turn it was to "roll." 

This "night rolling," as it is called, is not the easiest 
thing to do by any means. The road, steep and nar- 
row and rough at any time, would in snowy or rainy 
weather cause an occasional sinking of the heart to 
the best of drivers. To these difficulties was added 
the necessity of passing the slowly descending trains 

54 





WINTER DAYS IN ALSACE 



LAST DAYS IN ALSACE 

of ammunition wagons and mules. On one stretch 
of road no lights were permitted, as they would 
have disclosed its location to the Germans. On nights 
when there was no moonlight and heavy mists en- 
shrouded the mountains, it was a trying nerve strain 
to come down this bit of road. The history of every 
car would be full of stories of narrow escapes from 
running into wagons, mules, or men, or running over 
the edge of the road or against the side of the hill. 
These difficulties and trials, however, were n't what 
would occupy the mind when the German shells 
began breaking near; they lose their importance 
entirely. One can get used to the blind driving on a 
dark night, but never to the high-explosive shells. 
Even on the floor of the valley where the road is 
level, the thrills might not cease, for here it has 
been a common experience to run into an unlighted 
wagon or to be smashed by a heavy, ponderous motor 
truck. Perhaps it would be a mere matter of get- 
ting ditched in the effort to get out of the way of the 
latter. But with the Ford this was never a serious 
trouble, as eight or ten men, and they were always 
to be had in a few moments on any part of the road, 
could quickly lift it out and put it on the road again. 
Out of the most severe smash-ups the Fords have 
emerged supreme and in every case proved the state- 
ment that a "Ford car can be bent but not broken." 
At the hospital the wounded would be taken out, 
new blankets and stretchers put in, the gas tank 
filled, and the car sent up the mountain again to wait 

55 



FRIENDS OF FRANCE 

for more blessSs unless it was time for the driver to 
turn in and get a bit of sleep. 

During the day a call would very often mean a 
trip down the other side of the mountain to the ad- 
vance posts nearer Hartmannsweilerkopf. While 
day driving has n't the terrors of night driving, yet 
the road near these two posts and the posts them- 
selves were more often the object for German fire, 
and it was with a little feeling of dread that one went 
there. The road down to it was exceedingly steep in 
places and few cars could make the return trip with 
a full load. There never was any anxiety about stall- 
ing, however, for a little assistance from eight or ten 
soldiers would send the car on its way again. Many 
a time a driver would unconsciously arrive at the 
posts at a time of bombardment and be told to leave 
his machine and hurry to an abri. An abri is a cave 
or dug-out in the side of the mountain offering pro- 
tection against the German shells. All along the 
mountain roads these little places of refuge began to 
appear after the Germans had learned how to drop 
shells consistently near these routes, and to see them 
thus was a real comfort to the mind whenever the 
whistle of a shell sounded unpleasantly loud and near. 
These caves were not always in a finished state, as a 
big broad-shouldered driver learned to his discomfort 
and the vexation of his two comrades. They were 
taking a look at Hartmanns from a portion of the 
road whence it can be seen, when the portentous 
sound of the flying shells began which kept coming 

56 



LAST DAYS IN ALSACE 

nearer and nearer. The Americans turned and ran 
up the road to one of these ahris, the big man lead- 
ing. He darted for the cave entrance, but his body 
was just too big and he was wedged tightly between 
the stone sides, while his two comrades pounded on 
his back clamoring for admittance. He decided it 
was more comfortable and safe flat against the rocks 
in front of the car, and safer, too, than in a hole the 
entrance to which might so easily be closed. 

One was not always compelled to be conscious of 
such unpleasant things as bursting shells. At slack 
periods when neither side was firing, and the traffic 
was not too heavy up and down the roads, the trip 
up and over the mountains could be one of the 
pleasantest of rides. Sometimes after a snowstorm 
the mountain forest scenes were magnificent, and 
there was the occasional wonderful expanse of view 
over valley and plain below. Away off on the German 

side could be seen the town of M which was 

brightly illuminated at night. The Germans seemed 
indifferent to the fact that these lights were a great 
temptation to the French gunners. As far as known, 
the latter seldom yield to this temptation to bombard 
civilians despite the fact that the Germans were shell- 
ing towns, needlessly it seemed, in the territory held 
by France. Many pleasant rides after the attack, in 
the warm sunshine of the spring days that came in 
January, will stay in the minds of the drivers, a 
contrast to the rushing trips taken in slush and mud 
and snow during the height of the attack. 

57 



FRIENDS OF FRANCE 

The time spent in Moosch at the hospital was 
nearly always a period of activity and interest. 
There were sure to be minor repairs needing atten- 
tion, tire-changing to be done, and often more diffi- 
cult matters to attend to, such as eliminating the 
knock in an engine, changing brake-bands, or putting 
in a new rear axle. The hospital itself looked across 
the valley to the hills beyond, upon one of which was 
anchored a small sausage-shaped balloon, such as 
is used all along the French line for observation pur- 
poses. One hundred metres back of the hospital 
rose the hills forming the other side of the valley. 
On the slope of one of these was the rapidly growing 
graveyard where the bodies of the soldiers who had 
died at the hospitals were laid. Among them was 
the body of Richard Hall, the young American am- 
bulance driver who lost his life during the attack, 
when his machine was struck by a shell on the road 
up the mountain. On the east side of the hospital 
passed a small road that led up to the graveyard, 
and beyond this was an open field where an aero 
bomb fell with disastrous results to one fowl and to 
the windows of the hospital on that side. In the 
hospital yard on this side were put the ambulances 
needing repairing, and in rush times part of the other 
side of the yard was also required. Here was rather 
a good-sized building, the front end of which was the 
morgue and the other end the laundry. Behiud it 
was a small shelter where the bloody stretchers were 
cleaned. It was in these surroundings, with the rows 

58 




EFFECT OF GERMAN SHELLS IN ALSACE (THANN) 




ON THE ROAD TO HARTMANNSWEILERKOPF, DECEMBER, 1915 



LAST DAYS IN ALSACE 

of coffins on one side and the stretcher-cleaning on 
the other, that much of the repair work was done 
during the height of the attack. Here, too, would 
form the military funeral processions that went with 
the bodies to the graveyard on the hill. Two fu- 
nerals a day of one to five coffins was the regular 
schedule in the busy days of the attack. One of the 
most intensely interesting sights was the gathering of 
the whole regiment, of those who were left after the 
attack, about this graveyard to give a last formal 
salute to their departed comrades. 

Hardly a day passed during the period of the at- 
tack when the village was not shelled, and when it 
was clear, the German aeroplanes would appear and 
drop their bombs or smoke signals, or seek to destroy 
the observation balloon of the French, descending as 
near to it as they dared. One of the prettiest sights 
of the war is to see the little tufts of cloud appear 
near the course of the speeding machine whenever 
the shrapnel bombs burst. The cloudlets formed by 
the French shells are white, by those of the Germans, 
black. It was surprising how difficult it seemed for 
gunners to get anywhere near the aeroplanes. They 
would pepper the sky in every direction except near 
the moving spot they were trying to hit. At rare in- 
tervals both German and French machines were up, 
and their manoeuvring for an advantage was always 
interesting. The interest, however, in this sort of 
thing changes after a few bombs have been dropped 
and their terrific effect seen. 

59 



FRIENDS OF FRANCE 

Such is the general story of the activity and life of 
the Section's last months in Alsace. Its details would 
include many stories of tight squeezes, of break-downs 
and troubles in hot places, of the carrying of soldiers 
driven mad under the strain of war, of having men die 
in your car on the way to the hospital, of short side 
trips right up amidst the French artillery stations, 
and always of the patient, quiet suffering of the 
French soldier. There would be stories of the days 
when the car would have "moods," and refuse to 
make the grades as it ought, and then again of times 
when nothing was too much for the engine to do. 

After the attack we were moved from Alsace farther 
inland, and after some wandering from place to place 
through a country that had been the scene of much 
fighting in the earlier part of the war, and through 
villages almost completely destroyed by the Germans, 
we were sent to a town near Nancy — Tantonville — 
to do ambulance work for the hospitals situated 
within a twenty-five- kilometre radius and to wait 
until our cars could be overhauled and repaired.^ 

Everett Jackson 

^ This Section subsequently rendered heroic service in the great battle 
of Verdun, and has since been sent to Salonica to serve with the French 
army of the Orient. {November, 1916), ,, 



1 



V 

THE SECTION IN LORRAINE 

Though desolation stain their foiled advance. 
In ashen ruins hearth-stones linger whole: 

Do what they may they cannot master France, 
Do what they can, they cannot quell the soul. 

Barrett Wendell 

AN INTRODUCTION BY THEODORE ROOSEVELT ^ 

I VERY cordially call attention to this account of the work of one 
of the field sections of the American Ambulance in France, told 
out of his own experience by a young man, a graduate of the Uni- 
versity of Virginia, who has been driving an ambulance at the 
front. The article came through Hon. A. Piatt Andrew, formerly 
Assistant Secretary of the United States Treasury, and for two 
years treasurer of the American Red Cross. Mr. Andrew has taken 
an active part in the organization of the work. He writes that 
many American college graduates are engaged in the field sec- 
tions, and that they and others *'have been working for months 
with a devotion and courage which have commanded glowing 
tributes of gratitude and admiration from many French officers." 
In a second letter Mr. Andrew states that the faithful Mignot 
(spoken of in this article) was killed when the Germans bom- 
barded the headquarters of the field section. 

Every young man just leaving college — from Harvard, from 
Yale, from Princeton, from Michigan, Wisconsin, or California, 
from Virginia or Sewanee, in short, from every college in the 
country — ought to feel it incumbent on him at this time either 
to try to render some assistance to those who are battling for the 
right on behalf of Belgium, or else to try to fit himself to help his 

^ The account of the American Ambulance in Lorraine by Mr. J. R. 
McConnell was printed in the Outlook for September 15, 1915, and is 
reprinted here by kind permission of the editors of that journal. The 
introduction by Theodore Roosevelt and the drawing by M. Bils also 
originally appeared in the Outlook and are republished here. {Editor's 
Note.) 

61 



FRIENDS OF FRANCE 

own country if in the future she is attacked as wantonly as Bel- 
gium has been attacked. The United States has played a most 
ignoble part for the last thirteen months. Our Government has 
declined to keep its plighted faith, has declined to take action for 
justice and right, as it was pledged to take action under the Hague 
Conventions. At the same time, it has refused to protect its own 
citizens; and it has refused even to prepare for its own defence. It 
has treated empty rhetoric and adroit phrase-making as a sub- 
stitute for deeds. In spite of our solemn covenant to see that the 
neutrality of unoffending nations like Belgium was not violated; 
our solemn covenant to see that undefended towns were not bom- 
barded, as they have been again and again bombarded in France, 
England, and Belgium, and hundreds of women and children 
killed; our solemn covenant to see that inhuman and cruel meth- 
ods of warfare — such as the use of poisonous gas — were not 
used, we have, in a spirit of cold, selfish, and timid disregard of 
our obligations for others, refused even to protest against such 
wrongdoing, and, with abject indifference to right, the profes- 
sional pacifists have spent their time merely in clamoring for a 
peace that should consecrate successful wrong. What is even 
more serious, we have wholly failed to act effectively when our 
own men, women, and children were murdered on the high seas by 
the order of the German Government. Moreover, we have de- 
clined to take any effective steps when our men have been mur- 
dered and our women raped in Mexico — and of all ineffective 
steps the last proposal to get Bolivia and Guatemala to do what 
we have not the manliness to do was the most ineffective. 

But there have been a few individuals who, acting as individuals 
or in organizations, have to a limited extent by their private ef- 
forts made partially good our governmental shortcomings. The 
body of men and women for whom Mr. Andrew speaks is one of 
these organizations. I earnestly hope that his appeal will be 
heeded and that everything possible will be done to continue to 
make the work effective. 

Theodobe Roosevelt 

A SMALL field ambulance with a large red cross on 
each of its gray canvas sides slips quickly down the 
curving cobblestone street of a quaint old French 
frontier town, and turns on to the road leading to 



THE SECTION IN LORRAINE 

the posies de secours (dressing-stations) behind the 
trenches, which are about two kilometres distant. 
The driver is uniformed in khaki, and is in striking 
contrast to the hundreds of blue-gray-clad soldiers 
loitering on the streets. A group of little children cry 
out, *' AmSricain," and, with beaming smiles, one of 
them executes a rigid though not very correct salute 
as the car goes by. A soldier yells, "Good-morning, 
sir!" another, "Hello, Charley!" and waves his hand, 
while others not gifted with such an extensive 
command of English content themselves with ''Bon- 
jour I " and ''Camarade!" The little car spins on past 
companies of tired, dusty soldiers returning from the 
trenches, and toots to one side the fresher-looking sec- 
tions that are going up for their turn. A sentinel 
stands out in the middle of the road and makes fran- 
tic motions with his hand to indicate that shrapnel 
is bursting over the road ahead, "I should worry," 
comes from the driver, and the car speeds serenely 
along the way. 

It is an ambulance of the Section Sanitaire Ameri- 
caine, Y, the squad that has just been cite a Vordre 
de Varmee (honorably mentioned in despatches). 

The drivers of these cars are all American volun- 
teers: young men who, for the most part, come from 
prominent famiHes in the States. All parts of the 
Union seem to be represented. The Sections are com- 
posed of from fifteen to twenty-five cars each, and are 
under the direction of a Section commander. While 
fhe cars are allotted to the Sections by the American 

63 



FRIENDS OF FRANCE 

Ambulance Hospital, directed by its officers, and in 
part supported by the organization, they nevertheless 
become an integral part of the Sanitary Service of the 
French army, to which they are assigned as soon as 
they enter the war zone. The cars and conducteurs, as 
the drivers are called, are militarized, and all general 
orders come from the French medical officers. The 
French Government supplies the gasoline, oil, and 
tires, and the personnel of the Sections are housed and 
fed by the army. They are given the same good food 
and generous ration that the French soldier receives. 
Attached to each Section is a French non-commis- 
sioned officer who attends to various details and acts 
as interpreter. Section Y is favored by the addition 
of an army chef, and the Section commander's orderly 
has been put in the general service of all the members. 

It is forbidden to give the location of any of the 
active units of the French army, and as this restric- 
tion holds good for Section Y, which is at the very 
front, I cannot give any details that would indicate 
the point in the line where the Section is stationed. 
I believe it is allowable to say that the town is very 
old and possesses a rare beauty. I have never seen a 
place that could boast of such a number of exquisite 
gardens or such a lovely encircling boulevard. The 
surrounding hilly country is charming and pregnant 
with the most romantic historical associations. Its 
reputation as a history-making region is certainly not 
suffering at the present. 

The Americans are quartered in a large building 

64 



THE SECTION IN LORRAINE 

that had not been occupied since the mobilization in 
August, 1914. There are countless rooms already fur- 
nished, and those on the first floor have been cleaned 
up so that now the Section, which consists of twenty- 
four men, has "all the comforts of home." There is a 
large mess-hall, kitchen, writing-room, library, gen- 
eral office, dormitory, and a good, generous vaulted 
cellar of easy access. This last adjunct is important, 
for the town is one of the most frequently bombarded 
places in the line, and very often big shells that wreck 
a house at one shot make it advisable to take to the 
cave. The atelier of the armurier (armorer's work- 
shop), with its collection of tools and fixtures, now 
serves as a perfect automobile repair shop. There is 
also running water, and at first we had both gas and 
electric lights; but shells have eventually put both 
systems out of commission. Naturally the telephone 
line gets clipped every few days, but that is essential, 
and so it is quickly repaired. Behind the headquarters 
is a gem of a garden containing several species of roses, 
and, as fortune would have it, new wicker chairs. At 
first it all seemed too good to be true. It did not seem 
possible that such an amazing combination of com- 
forts could exist in the war zone, and still less so when 
one looked down the street and saw the German 
trenches in full view on the crest of a hill fourteen 
hundred yards distant, where at night rifle flashes 
are seen. To Section Y, that had hibernated and 
drudged along at Beauvais some thirty-five kilo- 
metres behind the line until April, it was a realization 

65 



FRIENDS OF FRANCE 

of hopes beyond belief. Of course, as far as the com- 
forts are concerned, all may change. Any minute 
orders may arrive that will shift us, and then it may 
mean sleeping on straw, occupying barns or any avail- 
able shelter; but while the present conditions obtain 
we beg to differ with Sherman! 

A French Motor Ambulance Section had been 
handling the wounded of the division to which our 
squad was attached, and we at first supplemented 
their work. To start with, French orderlies went out 
with the American drivers on calls to show them the 
working of the system, but after two or three days 
the Americans fell into the work as if it had been a 
life's practice, and, in spite of a lack of conversational 
ability, managed to evacuate the wounded without a 
hitch. The Americans did their work so well that 
they obtained the entire confidence of the authori- 
ties, and in a few weeks the French Section was 
transferred to another post. It speaks very well for 
Section Y that all of the work of one of the most 
important points in the line was entrusted to it alone. 

In addition to the actual carrying of wounded, 
there is a remarkable amount of detail office work; for 
every report, request, or order has to be made in trip- 
licate, and it keeps the commander of the Section, his 
assistant, and the marechaux des logis, supplemented 
by a corporal and telephonist, very busy running the 
business and executive end. Then, in addition to the 
proper despatching of the regular and special services, 
there are hundreds of delicate situations to handle: 

60 



THE SECTION IN LORRAINE 

requests of the authorities, the satisfying of numerous 
officers, and the reception of the various dignitaries 
who come to visit the much-heralded American Sec- 
tion. It is only on account of the exceptional ability 
and capacity of our diplomatic commander, "Ned" 
Salisbury, of Chicago, that the Section has been en- 
trusted with such vital responsibilities and that it has 
been able to perform them with such success. 

All the men in the Section had been billeted at 
houses in a town eight kilometres below, where they 
slept when not on night duty; but when the French 
Section was ordered away, a number of the men 
elected to move up to the advance point, and were 
given excellent quarters in the various vacated resi- 
dences of the town. Why, instead of just rooms they 
had suites, and the commander has an apartment in 
the show place of the town! It is surrounded by ex- 
tensive walled grounds which have been made into a 
ravishing garden of flowering shrubs and trees; little 
lily-covered, iris-bordered lakes, masses of roses, beds 
of poppies, and in one sylvan nook is a flower-covered 
fountain fashioned of great rough stones whose tink- 
ling waters tumble in glittering cascades between riots 
of vivid-colored plants and dense walls of variegated 
verdure. To see our commander sitting in his Louis 
XV furnished rooms, which, by the way, have an 
excellent trench exposure, reminds me strongly of 
those paintings which depict generals of 1871 disport- 
ing themselves in the splendor of a commandeered 
chMeau. 

67 



FRIENDS OF FRANCE 

From all the foregoing it must not be imagined 
that Section Y has a sinecure, or that strolling 
around gardens is a habit. Far from it. The regular 
daily service is arduous enough in itself, for one is 
either on duty or on call all of the time; but there 
are times following an attack when the men rest 
neither night nor day, when one gets food only in 
snatches, and frequently days at a time will pass 
when one is on such continuous service that there is 
never a chance to undress. Then there is the other 
aspect, the ever-present danger of being killed or 
wounded that one is under at the front, for Section 
Y works and lives in a heavily shelled area. But 
we will not talk of that, for it is unwise to think of 
such a thing when facing it. There are times, how- 
ever, when one is forcibly reminded, and when it 
takes a great amount of will power to remain calm 
and perform one's duty. 

The mention of shell fire to one who has never 
experienced it brings to mind, in a vague sort of way, 
an association with danger, but that is all. To us 
who have seen its effects — the hideously mangled 
killed and wounded, the agonized expressions and 
streams of fast-flowing blood, the crumbling of solid 
houses into clouds of smoke and dust; to us who hear 
the terrible tearing, snarling, deep roar of great shells 
as they hurtle down the air-lanes towards us to de- 
tonate with a murderous, ear-splitting crash, flinging 
their jagged Sclats for a half-mile in all directions, 
and sometimes killing French comrades near us; to 

68 



I 



THE SECTION IN LORRAINE 

us who live and work within shell range, not knowing 
when we too may be annihilated or maimed for life, 
it seems a very real and terrible menace, and for that 
reason to be banished from our thoughts. 

In spite of the danger, the Americans render their 
service with fidelity at any and all times. A French 
captain once remarked that, no matter how much the 
town was being shelled, the little field ambulances 
could be seen slipping down the streets, past corners, 
or across the square on their way to and from pastes 
de secours back of the trenches. I remember one day 
that was especially a test of the men. The town was 
being shelled, and it happened that at the same time 
there were many calls for cars. The Germans were 
paying particular attention to the immediate sur- 
roundings of the headquarters, and the shells were 
not falling by any time-table known to us. A call 
came in, and the "next man "was handed his orders. 
He waited until a shell burst and then made a run for 
it. Several cars had been out on calls and were due 
to return. There was no way of giving them a warn- 
ing. We heard the purr of a motor, and almost im- 
mediately the sing of a shell very close to us. There 
was an instant of anxiety, an explosion, and then we 
were relieved to see the car draw up in line, the driver 
switch off his motor and run for our entrance. He 
held his order card in front of him as he ran. Just 
as he entered another shell hit near by. It reminded 
me strongly of a scene in a "ten-twenty-thirty" mar- 
tial play. All the hero needed was some fuller's earth 

69 



FRIENDS OF FRANCE 

to pat off his shoulders when he came inside. There 
were several entrances of this sort during the after- 
noon, and one shell, landing just in front of us and 
nearly on top of a passing motor lorry, resulted in 
the addition of the French driver and his aid to our 
little wall-protected group. It was a day when the 
shelling seemed to be general, for shrapnel and small 
77 shells were also bursting at intervals over and in 
a little town one passes through in order to avoid 
a more heavily bombarded outer route on the way 
to the posies de secours. It was magnificent descend- 
ing the hill from the posies that afternoon. To the 
left French 75 shells were in rapid action; and one 
could see the explosion of the German shells just 
over the crest of the long ridge where the batteries 
were firing. It was a clear, sparkling day, and against 
the vivid green of the hills, across the winding river, 
the little white puffs of shrapnel exploding over the 
road below were in perfect relief, while from the red- 
tiled roofs of the town, nestling in the valley below, 
tall columns of black smoke spurted up where the 
large shells struck. Little groups of soldiers, the 
color of whose uniforms added greatly to the picture, 
were crowded against the low stone walls lining the 
road to observe the firing; and one sensed the action 
and felt the real excitement of the sort of war one 
imagines instead of the uninteresting horror of the 
cave-dweller combats that are the rule in this war. 
It is difficult to take any one day's work and 
describe it in the attempt to give an adequate pic- 

70 




SHELLS BREAKING ON THE COTE DE MOUSSON 




WATCHING AN AEROPLANE DUEL IN PONT-A-MOX'SSON 



THE SECTION IN LORRAINE 

ture of the routine of the American Section, for with 
us all days are so different. The background or 
framework, the schedule of runs, the points of calling, 
the ordinary duties, are more or less the same; but 
the action and experiences, which add the color, are 
never alike. There are days at a stretch when the 
work might be called monotonous, were it not for 
the fact that tjiere is a continual source of pleasure 
in feeling that one is being of service to France, and 
that one's time is being spent in relieving the suffer- 
ing of her brave wounded soldiers. 

Six-thirty is the time for bread and coffee, and the 
long table in the flag-decorated mess-room begins 
to fill. Mignot, our comrade orderly, is rushing to 
and fro placing bowls in front of those arriving, and 
practising on each the few English expressions he 
has picked up by association with us. Two men of 
the Section enter who look very tired. They throw 
their caps or fatigue hats on to a side table and call 
for Mignot. They have been on all-night service at 
M — — , the hamlet where the most active posies de 
secours are located. 

**Much doing last night.^" asks one of the crowd 
at the table. 

"Not much. Had only sixteen altogether." 

"Anything stirring.^" 

"Yes; Fritz eased in a few shrapnel about five- 
thirty, but did n't hurt any one. You know the last 
house down on the right-hand side.^ Well, they 
smeared that with a shell during the night." 

71 



FRIENDS OF FRANCE 

"By the way," continues the man in from night 
service, addressing himself to one across the table, 
"Canot, the artilleryman, was looking for you. Says 
he's got a ring for you made out of a Boche fuse-cap, 
and wants to know if you want a Geneva or Lorraine 
cross engraved on it." 

The men in the Section leave the room one by one 
to take up their various duties. There are some 
whose duty it is to stay in reserve, and these go out 
to work on their cars. Others are on bureau service, 
and they remain within call of the telephone. Two 

leave for D , a town eight kilometres below, 

where their job is to evacuate from the two hospitals 
where the wounded have been carried down the day 
and night before. This town, too, suffers an occa- 
sional bombardment, and wounded are left there 
no longer than necessary. They are taken to a sani- 
tary train which runs to a little village a few kilo- 
metres below, which is just beyond the limit of shell 
fire. 

Sometimes our cars are called upon to evacuate 

to X , which is a good many kilometres distant. 

The splendid road runs through a most charming 
part of the country. Just now everything is in bloom, 
and the gentle undulating sweep of highly cultivated 
^elds is delineated by plots of yellow mustard plants, 
mellow brown tilled earth, and countless shades of 
refreshing green, while near the tree-bordered road 
one can see stretches of waving wheat dotted with 
|he flammg red of poppies and the delicate blue of 

72 



THE SECTION IN LORRAINE 

little field flowers. On those trips it does not seem 
possible that war is near; but on high, sharply out- 
lined against the deep-blue sky, is a sausage-shape 
observation balloon, and looking back through a 
little window in the car one sees the bandaged and 
prostrate figures of the wounded occupants. 

There are only two cars on service at M during 

the usual run of days, for unless there is an attack 
comparatively few wounded are brought down from 
the trenches to their respective regimental yostes de 
secours in the village. 

Down the single, long street of this town, which 
had been changed from a quiet country hamlet to 
a military cantonment, strolls a motley collection of 
seasoned soldiers. The majority are uniformed in 
the newly adopted light bluish-gray; some few still 
carry the familiar baggy red trousers, black anklets, 
and long, dark-blue coat with conspicuous brass 
buttons. The sapeurs and artillerymen wear dull 
green-and-yellow splotched dusters that make them 
almost invisible in the woods and impart the most 
striking war-working appearance to them. There is 
the cavalryman in his light-blue tunic with pinkish 
trimmings, and his campaign cloth-covered helmet, 
from the crest of which fiows a horse-tail plume. 
Here and there are the smartly dressed officers with 
their variously colored uniforms designating their 
branch; but their gold galloons of rank do not show 
conspicuously on their sleeves now, and the braid on 
their caps is covered. Some wear the splotched duster 

73 



FRIENDS OF FRANCE 

which hides their identity entirely, and others are 
dressed in serviceable thin brown uniforms which 
bear hardly any insignia. In front of four or five of 
the low masonry houses a Red Cross flag is hung. 
These mark the pastes de secours where the wounded 
are bandaged and given to the ambulances. An 
American car is backed up in front of one, and the 
khaki-clad driver is the centre of interest for a group 
of soldiers. Some he knows well, and he is carrying 
on a cheerful conversation. It is surprising what ft 
number of French soldiers speak English; and there 
are hundreds who have lived in England and in the 
States. Some are even American citizens, who have 
returned to fight for la belle France^ their mother 
country. I have met waiters from the Cafe Lafayette, 
chefs from Fifth Avenue hotels, men who worked in 
New York and Chicago banks, in commission houses, 
who own farms in the West, and some who had taken 
up their residence in American cities to live on their 
incomes. It seems very funny to be greeted with a 
•* Hello there, old scout!" by French soldiers. 

"Well, when did you come over?'* asks the driver. 

"In August. Been through the whole thing." 

"Where were you in the States?" 

"New York, and I am going back when it is over. 
Got to beat it now. So long. See you later." 

A few companies of soldiers go leisurely past on 
their way up to the trenches, and nearly every man 
has something to say to the American driver. Five 
out of ten will point to the ambulance and cry out 

74 



,1 











IN FRONT OF A " POSTE DE SECOURS ^ 




A:/, ^^./ 



AN AMERICAN AMBULANCE DRIVER 



THE SECTION IN LORRAINE 

with questionable but certainly cheerful enough hu- 
mor, "Save a place for me to-morrow!" or, "Be sure 
and give me a quick ride!" Others yell out greet- 
ings, or air their knowledge of English. "Hello, 
Charley!" heads the list in that department, and 
"Engleesh spoken" runs a close second. Some of the 
newly arrived soldiers take us for English, and " Cam- 
arade anglais" is in vogue; but with old acquaint- 
ances ^'Camarade amSricain," cried in a very sin- 
cere tone and followed by a grip of the hand, has a 
very warm friendship about it. Yes, you make good 
friends that way. Working along together in this 
war brings men very close. You find some delightful 
chaps, and then . . . well, sometimes you realize you 
have not seen a certain one for a week or so, and you 
inquire after him from a man in his company. 

"Where is Bosker, or Busker ? — I don't know how 
you pronounce it. You know, tall fellow with cor- 
poral's galloons who was always talking about what 
a good time he was going to have when he got back 
to Paris." 

"He got killed in the attack two nights ago," re- 
plies the man you have asked. 

And you wonder how it happened exactly, and 
what he looks like dead. 

Some days it is very quiet up there at the posies 
de secours — even the artillery to the rear is not firing 
overhead; and at other times it is rather lively. Sol- 
diers will be sauntering up and down the long street, 
collecting in groups, or puttering around at some 

75 



FRIENDS OF FRANCE 

task, when suddenly there is a short, sharp, whis- 
tling sound overhead and a loud detonation as the 
well-timed shrapnel explodes. The aggregation does 
a turning movement that for unison of motion could 
not be excelled, and packs against the houses on 
the lee side of the street. There are some who do not 
bother about such a comparatively small thing as 
shrapnel, and keep to their course or occupation. I 
have seen men continue to sweep the street, or keep 
going to where they were heading, in spite of the fact 
that shrapnel whistled in at frequent intervals. I 
have also seen some of these immovable individuals 
crumple up and be still. 

One evening the firing was so heavy that every 
one had sought the protection of the walls, when 
down the street came a most gloriously happy sol- 
dier. He was taking on up the street carrying a 
bottle, and at every explosion he waved his free arm 
and a wild yell of delight issued from his beaming 
face. It appeared to entertain him hugely, as if a 
special fireworks exhibition had been arranged on 
his behalf. It always seems to be that way. A sober 
man would have been killed on the spot. 

With shells it is a very different story than with 
shrapnel. One can avoid the latter by backing up 
against a house, but the shells are apt to push it 
over on you. When the deeper, heavier whistle of a 
shell is heard, it sounds a good deal like tearing a big 
sheet of cloth. Men do not brave it. They know its 
hideous effects, and take to the nearest cellar or door- 

76 



THE SECTION IN LORRAINE 

way. The first one or two that come in, if well placed, 
often claim victims. A group of soldiers will be talk- 
ing or playing cards in front of a house. There is a 
swish; the shell hits the hard road in front of them, 
and the jagged Sclais rip into the little crowd, some- 
times killing three or four of them. The soldiers who 
find themselves at a greater distance have time to 
throw themselves flat on the ground, and it is seldom 
that the singing fragments do not pass well over- 
head. 

It is quite remarkable that none of the Americans 

have as yet been hurt at X , for the evacuation 

of the wounded goes on regardless of the shelling. 
Often the escapes have been very close. Just yes- 
terday ten big shells came in, killed six men and 
wounded forty others, and yet our two cars on duty 
there escaped without being hit. One day, following 
an attack, the firing was rather frequent. Nearly all 
of the ambulances were lined up in the village wait- 
ing for the wounded to be brought down. Our com- 
mander was talking to one of his drivers when a shell 
exploded on the other side of a wall behind him. He 
walked down the street to give instructions to an- 
other man. A shell hit the roof of a house there and 
covered the two with debris. He started to return, 
and as he passed a certain house a shell went right 
into it. They seemed to be following him. It fre- 
quently happens that an ambulance will be running 
down the street and a shell hit a house just behind 
or in front of its course. Now and then one's breath 

77 



FRIENDS OF FRANCE 

will stop when a car is enveloped in the clouds of 
dust and debris coming from a shell-hit house, and 
start again when from the haze the driver emerges 
dirty but smiling. Of course, the cars have been hit. 
A shell tore off the front top of one ten inches from 
the driver's head, but as yet no member of the Ameri- 
can Section has been hurt. 

A kilometre up the climbing, winding road is a 
lone foste de secours in the woods just off the high- 
way. The approach and the place itself are often 
shelled. There have been times when the drivers 
were under a seriously heavy fire on night duty; 
times when trees have been shattered and fallen 
across the road and huge craters made in the soft 
earth of the adjacent fields. A kilometre beyond is 
still another point of call, and from there one can 
look directly into one of the most fought-over sec- 
tions of ground in the long line from the sea to Bel- 
fort. It is a bit of land that before the war was cov- 
ered with a magnificent forest. Now it is a wilderness 
whose desolation is beyond description. It is a sec- 
tion of murdered nature. The black, shattered things 
sticking up out of a sea of mounds were at one time 
great trees. There are no branches on the split trunks 
now. No green can be seen anywhere. Where the 
trenches ran there are but series of indentations, 
jumbles of splintered trench timbers, broken guns, 
rusty fragments of shells, strips of uniforms and caps, 
shoes with a putrid, maggot-eaten mass inside. It 
does not seem possible that life could ever have been 

78 




ON THE ROAD TO BOIS-LE-PRETRE 




FONTAINE DU PERE HILARION, A SPRING IN BOIS-LE-PRETRE WHERE 

FRENCH AND GERMAN SOLDIERS FRATERNIZED IN 

THE EARLY DAYS OF THE WAR 



THE SECTION IN LORRAINE 

there. It looks as if it had always been dead. What 
testimony to human habita|:ion remains is but mute 
and buried wreckage. 

This last jposte de secours is in the very line of fire, 
but then there are bomb-proofs near by and one can 
find shelter. One must be careful running up to this 
poste, for new and very deep holes are continually 
being blown in the road and there is danger of wreck- 
ing the cars. 

Section Y has performed its duties so well that 
the work of an adjacent division has been given to 
it, and in a few days now the little cars will roll past 
the last-mentioned jposte de secours over to the ex- 
posed plain beyond and into the zone of its newly 
acquired activities. 

The American cars literally infest the roads in the 
day. They buzz along on calls to the posies, return 
from evacuations, and keep so busy trying to accel- 
erate the work that a casual observer might imagine 
that a whole division had been annihilated overnight. 
A car with three stretcher-cases in the back, a slightly 
wounded soldier sitting on the seat next to the driver, 
and a load of knapsacks piled between the hood and 
the fenders, starts down from the poste de secours, 
spins on through a village full of resting troops, and 
turns on to the highway leading to the evacuation 
hospitals at the town eight kilometres below. At 
first the holes in the walls and houses along the way, 
and the craters in the fields where the marmites had 
struck, made one continually conscious of the possi- 

79 



FRIENDS OF FBANCE 

bility of a shell. Now one does not think about it, 
save to note the new holes, observe that the older 
ones have been cemented up, and to hope that an Sclat 
won't hit you at those exceedingly rare times when 
a shell bursts ahead or behind. The closest call so far 
on that stretch of road was when a 210 hit eleven 
feet to the side of one of our cars, but failed to ex- 
plode. Of course there is a chance that even at that 
distance the Sclat might take a peculiar course and 
miss one; but the chances are that if that shell had 
gone off one of our men would have been minus sev- 
eral necessary portions of his anatomy. 

The work at night is quite eerie, and on moonless 
nights quite difficult. No lights are allowed, and the 
inky black way ahead seems packed with a discord- 
ant jumble of sounds as the never-ending artillery 
and ravitaillement trains rattle along. One creeps 
past convoy after convoy, past sentinels who cry, 
^'Halte Id!" and then whisper an apologetic *'Passez" 
when they make out the ambulance; and it is only 
in the dazzling light of the illuminating rockets that 
shoot into the air and sink slowly over the trenches 
that one can see to proceed with any speed. 

It is at night, too, that our hardest work comes, 
for that is usually the time when attacks and counter- 
attacks are made and great numbers of men are 
wounded. Sometimes all twenty of the Section cars 
will be in service. It is then that one sees the most 
frightfully wounded: the men with legs and arms 
shot away, mangled faces, and hideous body wounds. 

80 



THE SECTION IN LORRAINE 

It is a time when men die in the ambulances before 
they reach the hospitals, and I believe nearly every 
driver in the Section has had at least one distressing 
experience of that sort. 

Early one morning there was an urgent call for a 
single wounded. The man's comrades gathered 
around the little car to bid their friend good-bye. He 
was terribly wounded and going fast. "See," said one 
of them to the man on the stretcher, "you are going 
in an American car. You will have a good trip, old 
fellow, and get well soon. Good-bye and good luck!" 
They forced a certain cheerfulness, but their voices 
were low and dry, for they saw death creeping into the 
face of their comrade. The driver took his seat and 
was starting when he was asked to wait. "Something 
for him," they said. When the car arrived at the hos- 
pital, the man was dead. He was cold and must have 
died at the start of the trip. The driver regretted the 
delay in leaving. Why had they asked him to wait? 
Then he saw that the ambulance was covered with 
sprigs of lilac and little yellow field flowers. The men 
knew the car would serve as a hearse. 

Once an American ambulance was really pressed 
into service as a hearse in a very touching funeral. A 
young lieutenant, the son of a prominent and influ- 
ential official, had been killed in a gallant action. The 
family had been granted permission to enter the lines 
and attend the funeral. The young officer, who but a 
few days before his death had won his commission, 
was held in the deepest affection by his company, and 

81 



FRIENDS OF FRANCE 

they arranged that, as something very special, he 
should have a hearse. A car from Section "Y" was 
offered, and went to the church in the hamlet back of 
the trenches. The soldiers literally covered the am- 
bulance with flowers and branches, and then stood 
waiting with the great wreaths they had brought in 
their hands. The little group emerged from the partly 
wrecked church, and the flag-covered coffin was slid 
into the car. The cortege^ headed by a white-robed 
priest and two censer boys, wound slowly down the 
tortuous path that the troops follow on their way to 
the trenches. 

The mother was supported by the father, a vener- 
able soldier of 1870, who limped haltingly on his 
wooden leg. Back of the two came the lieutenant's 
sister, a beautiful girl just entering her twenties. The 
captain of the company was at her side, then followed 
other officers, and the silent, trench-worn soldiers be- 
hind. The funeral halted on the hillside near a grave 
dug beneath the branches of a budding apple tree. 
The coffin was pulled from the ambulance and low- 
ered into the grave. And the mother knelt at the 
side, sobbing. The old father, who struggled to sup- 
press his emotion, began a little oration. His voice 
trembled, and when at intervals he tried to say, ** Vive 
la France! " it broke and great tears ran down his face. 
The soldiers, too, were crying, and the American's 
eyes were damp. Behind, a battery of 75's was firing 
— for on no account must the grim details of the war 
he halted — and at every deafening shot and swish of 



THE SECTION IN LORRAINE 

the shell tearing overhead the girl shivered, huddled 
close to the captain, and looked in a frightened way 
at the soldiers around her. In her small, thin shoes 
and black wavy dress she seemed strangely out of 
place in those military surroundings. 

The Americans have a faculty of adapting them- 
selves to any service they may be called upon to per- 
form, and many times they undertake on their own 
initiative various missions that are not in exact ac- 
cord with their military duties. They very often trans- 
port dead civilians after a bombardment. Though 
nearly every one takes to the caves when a bombard- 
ment starts, the first shells that come in frequently 
kill a number of people who have not had time to get 
to shelter. In the past few weeks nearly all the civil- 
ians have left the dangerous town, and it is seldom 
now that soldiers and the residents — men, women, 
and children — are found mixed up in pitiful dead 
groups. 

During one bombardment, some time ago, however, 
a considerable number of women and children were 
killed. A couple of the American ambulances were on 
the spot immediately after, and the men were silently 
going about their sad work. The little children who 
cry out to us as we pass were gathered around hold- 
ing to their mothers' trembling hands. They said, 
'' AmSricain,'' when they saw the khaki uniforms, 
but their tone was hushed and sad instead of loud and 
joyous, and had a surprised note, as it they had not 
expected to see the Americans at such a task. 

83 



FRIENDS OF FRANCE 

In one place a large crowd of people had gathered 
around an ambulance in front of a baker's shop. In 
the upper part of the building was a great irregular 
hole that included a portion of the roof, and inside the 
freshly exposed stone rims the interior of a room with 
shattered furniture could be seen. Below the huge 
rent on the gray face of the building was the fan- 
shaped design made by the shell's Sclats, On the side- 
walk were the bodies of two women and a soldier. A 
vivid red pool had formed around them and was flow- 
ing into the gutter. For some reason the gray dust 
covering the motionless black dresses of the women 
seemed to make the picture very much more terrible. 
The face of one of the women had been torn away, 
but her hair and one eye, which had a look of wild 
fear glazed in it, remained. As the stretcher the wo- 
man had been placed on was carried to the car a yel- 
low comb fell out of her bloody hair and dropped on 
the white-shod foot of a young girl standing near. 
The child pulled up her skirts with a disgusted look 
and kicked the comb off into the street. 

It took the Americans a long time to learn the value 
of prudence. At first during the bombardments they 
would rush to the street as soon as a shell landed and 
look to see what damage had been done. Then, when 
some Sclats had sizzed uncomfortably close to their 
persons, they became a little more discreet and waited 
a while before venturing out. Ten days ago, during a 
bombardment with the large 210 shells, a few of the 
Americans were gathered at the entrance to the court- 

84 



THE SECTION IN LORRAINE 

yard of our headquarters to observe the shells hitting 
in town. It was all very well until quite unexpectedly 
one hit the eaves of the building at a point about 
thirty yards from the group and carried away with 
its explosion about twenty feet of that part of the 
structure. Fortunately, the Sclat took a high course, 
but great building stones crashed down and blocked 
the roadway. The Americans were unharmed save for 
a thick coating of mortar dust, but that experience has 
discounted the popularity of orchestra seats during 
an exhibition in which shells larger than 77's appear. 

One of the men was twenty-five yards from a 210 
high-explosive projectile when it carved a great crater 
in the ground and killed two French Red Cross men 
near him, and he, for one, has no overpowering desire, 
after that murderous, crushing, breath-taking explo- 
sion, for any intimate personal research work into the 
effects of other large-calibre shells. 

Even now the members of Section Y have much 
to learn. They still persist in remaining in their 
chairs in the exposed garden when aeroplanes are be- 
ing fired at directly overhead, when balls of shrapnel 
have repeatedly dropped into the flower-beds, and 
when one man was narrowly missed by a long, razor- 
edged fragment of a shrapnel shell. And this has not 
even the excuse of a desire to observe — for the 
novelty of these performances has long since passed 
— and one hardly ever glances upward. They won't 
even move for a German Taube, though it might at 
any minute drop a bomb or two. As a matter of fact, 

85 



FRIENDS OF FRANCE 

however, explosives dropped from German machines 
are comparatively harmless. 

When a certain great stone structure on the water's 
edge is being shelled, the men off duty adjourn to the 
shore for the entertainment. They know the various 
schedules the shells run on, and time their arrival. 
The German guns firing them are so far off that the 
report cannot be heard. There is a deep, bass, tearing 
roar, closely followed by another, for they come in 
pairs; then two huge columns of water hurtle into the 
air for a hundred feet, accompanied by two heavy 
detonations. The bleacher-occupying Americans — 
they have installed a bench to sit on — then jump up 
and scurry for a wall that affords protection against 
the eclats that sing back from the shells. In a second 
there is a rush for the hot chunks of metal, while the 
natives emerge from their shelters to collect the fish 
that have been killed by the terrific concussion — and 
fish d la bombardement is served to us the next day I 

For some reason or other the German prisoners — 
and the Lord knows there are enough of them these 
days — still remain a subject of humorous interest to 
the Americans, while the Boches, as the Germans are 
called, stare at us in wild-eyed amazement, flavored 
with considerable venom, thinking us British and 
wondering how we got so far down the line. 

No matter how long the war lasts, I do not believe 
that the members of Section Y will lose any of 
their native ways, attitudes, or tastes. They will re- 
main just as American as ever. Why, they still fight 

86 



THE SECTION IN LORRAINE 

for a can of American tobacco or a box of cigarettes 
that comes from the States, when such a rare and ap- 
preciated article does turn up, and papers and maga- 
zines from home are sure to go the rounds, finding 
themselves at length in the hands of English-reading 
soldiers in the trenches. I never could understand the 
intense grip that the game of baseball seems to pos- 
sess, but it holds to some members of the Section with 
a cruel pertinacity. One very dark night, a few days 
ago, two of us were waiting at an advanced poste de 
secours. The rifle and artillery fire was constant, illu- 
minating rockets shot into the air, and now and then 
one could distinguish the hea,vy dull roar of a mine 
or torpille detonating in the trenches. War in all its 
engrossing detail was very close. Suddenly my friend 
turned to me and, with a sigh, remarked, " Gee 1 1 wish 
I knew how the Red Sox were making out!" 

Well, there may be more interesting things in the 
future to write of the Americans serving at the front, 
and, again, their work may become dull. But it 
makes no difference to the Section. The men will do 
what is asked and gladly, for there is no work more 
worth while than helping in some way, no matter 
what, this noblest of all causes. One does not look for 
thanks — there is a reward enough in the satisfac- 
tion the work gives; but the French do not let it stop 
at that. The men from the trenches are surprised 
that we have voluntarily undertaken such a hazard- 
ous occupation, and express their appreciation and 
gratitude with almost embarrassing frequency. "You 

87 



FRIENDS OF FRANCE 

render a great service," say the officers, and those of 
highest rank call to render thanks in the name of 
France. It is good to feel that one's endeavors are 
appreciated, and encouraging to hear the words of 
praise; but when, at the end of an evacuation, one 
draws a stretcher from the car, and the poor wounded 
man lying upon it, who has never allowed a groan to 
escape during a ride that must have been painful, 
with an effort holds out his hand, grasps yours, and, 
forcing a smile, murmurs, "Mem" — that is what 
urges you to hurry back for other wounded, to be glad 
that there is a risk to one's self in helping them, and to 
feel grateful that you have the opportunity to serve 
the brave French people in their sublime struggle. ^ 

James R. McConnell 

* This Section, after ten months' service at Pont-S,-Mousson, has worked 
for eight months in the Verdun Sector dm-ing the great battle. {Novem- 
ber, 1916.) 




VI 

AN AMERICAN AMBULANCE IN THE VERDUN ATTACK i 

"Our artillery and automobiles have saved Ver- 
dun," French officers and soldiers were continually 
telling me. And as I look back on two months of 
ambulance-driving in the attack, it seems to me that 
automobiles played a larger part than even the 
famous "seventy-fives," for without motor transport 
there would have been no ammunition and no food. 
One shell, accurately placed, will put a railway com- 
munication out of the running, but automobiles must 
be picked off one by one as they come within range. 
The picture of the attack that will stay with me 
always is that of the Grande Route north from Bar-le- 
Duc, covered with the snow and ice of Jthe last days 
of February. The road was always filled with two 
columns of trucks, one going north and the other 
coming south. The trucks, loaded with troops, shells, 
and bread, rolled and hobbled back and forth with 
the graceless, uncertain strength of baby elephants. 
It was almost impossible to steer them on the icy 
roads. Many of them fell by the wayside, overturned, 
burned up, or were left apparently unnoticed in the 
ceaseless tide of traffic that never seemed to hurry or 
to stop. 

* This article was printed in the July issue of the Cornhill Magazine, 
and is reproduced by permission of the author and the publishers of the 
Cornhill. 

89 



FRIENDS OF FRANCE 

All night and all day it continued. Soon the roads 
began to wear out. Trucks brought stones from the 
ruins of the battle of the Marne and sprinkled them 
in the ruts and holes; soldiers, dodging in and out of 
the moving cars, broke and packed the stones or 
sprinkled sand on the ice-covered hillsides. But the 
traflSc was never stopped for any of these things. The 
continuous supply had its effect on the demand. 
There were more troops than were needed for the 
trenches, so they camped along the road or in the 
fields. Lines of camions ran off the road and unloaded 
the reserve of bread; the same thing was done with 
the meat, which kept well enough in the snow; and 
the shells, which a simple camouflage of white tar- 
paulins effectually hid from the enemy airmen. 

At night, on the main road, I have watched for 
hours the dimmed lights of the camions, winding away 
north and south like the coils of some giant and lum- 
inous snake which never stopped and never ended. It 
was impressive evidence of a great organization that 
depended and was founded on the initiative of its 
members. Behind each light was a unit, the driver, 
whose momentary negligence might throw the whole 
line into confusion. Yet there were no fixed rules to 
save him from using his brain quickly and surely as 
each crisis presented itself. He must be continually 
awake to avoid any one of a thousand possible mis- 
chances. The holes and ice on the road, his skidding 
car, the cars passing in the same and opposite direc- 
tions, the cars in front and behind, the cars broken 

90 



AN AMERICAN AMBULANCE AT VERDUN 

down on the sides of the road — all these and many 
other things he had to consider before using brake or 
throttle in making his way along. Often snow and 
sleet storms were added to make driving more diffi- 
cult. Objects six feet away were completely invisible, 
and it was only by watching the trees along the side of 
the road that one could attempt to steer. 

I was connected with the Service des Autos as a 
driver in Section N° 2 of the Field Service of the 
American Ambulance of Neuilly. We had the usual 
French Section of twenty ambulances and one staff 
car, but, unlike the other Sections, we had only one 
man to a car. There were two officers, one the Chief 
of Section, Walter Lovell, a graduate of Harvard 
University and formerly a member of the Boston 
Stock Exchange; and George Roeder, Mechanical 
Officer, in charge of the supply of parts and the repair 
of cars. Before the war, he was a promising bacteri- 
ologist in the Rockefeller Institute. Our Section was 
one of five which compose the Field Service of the 
American Ambulance, and are located at various 
points along the front from Dunkirk to the Vosges. 
The general direction of the Field Service is in the 
hands of A. Piatt Andrew, formerly professor at 
Harvard and Assistant Secretary of the United States 
Treasury. He has organized the system by which 
volunteers and funds are obtained in America, and is 
the responsible link between the work of the Service 
and the will of the French authorities. 

In each of the five Sections there are twenty driv- 

91 



FRIENDS OF FRANCE 

ers, ail Americans and volunteers. Most of them are 
college men who have come over from the United 
States to " do their bit" for France and see the war at 
the same time. Certainly our Section was gathered 
from the four corners of the "States." One, a gradu- 
ate of the University of Pennsylvania, had worked 
for two years on the Panama Canal as an engineer; 
another, an Alaskan, had brought two hundred dogs 
over for the French Government, to be used for trans- 
portation in the Vosges; a third was a well-known 
American novelist who had left his home at Florence 
to be a chauffeur for France. There were also two 
architects, a New York undertaker, several soi-disant 
students, and a man who owned a Mexican ranch 
that was not sufficiently flourishing to keep him at 
home. 

The term of service required by the French authori- 
ties is now six months, though, of course, some of the 
men have been in the Section since the battle of the 
Marne. We all get five sous a day and rations as pri- 
vates in the French army, which was represented in 
our midst by a lieutenant, a marechal de logis, a 
mechanic, and a cook. 

On February 22 our French lieutenant gave us our 
"order to move," but all he could tell us about our 
destination was that we were going north. We started 
from Bar-le-Duc about noon, and it took us six hours 
to make forty miles through roads covered with snow, 
swarming with troops, and all but blocked by convoys 
of food carts and sections of trucks. Of course, we 

92 



AN AMERICAN AMBULANCE AT VERDUN 

knew that there was an attack in the neighborhood 
of Verdun, but we did not know who was making it or 
how it was going. Then about four o'clock in the 
short winter twilight we passed two or three regiments 
of French colonial troops on the march with all their 
field equipment. I knew who and what they were by 
the curious Eastern smell that I had always before 
associated with camels and circuses. They were lined 
up on each side of the road around their soup kitch- 
ens, which were smoking busily, and I had a good 
look at them as we drove along. 

It was the first time I had seen an African army in 
the field, and though they had had a long march, 
they were cheerful and in high spirits at the prospect 
of battle. They were all young, active men, and of all 
colors and complexions, from blue-eyed blonds to 
shiny blacks. They all wore khaki and brown shrap- 
nel casques bearing the trumpet insignia of the French 
sharpshooter. We were greeted with laughter and 
chaff, for the most part, in an unknown chatter, but 
now and again some one would say, "Hee, hee. 
Ambulance Americaine," or "Yes, Ingliish, good- 
bye." 

I was fortunate enough to pick up one of their non- 
commissioned officers with a bad foot who was going 
our way. He was born in Africa, which accounted for 
his serving in the colonials, though his mother was 
American and his father French. From him I learned 
that the Germans were attacking at Verdun, and that, 
to every one's surprise, they were trying to drive the 

93 



FRIENDS OF FRANCE 

point of the salient south instead of cutting it off from 
east to west. As we were passing along, one of his 
men shouted something to him about riding in an 
ambulance, and I remarked that they all seemed in a 
very good humor. "Oh yes," he answered; "we're 
glad to be on the move, as we've been en repos since 
autumn in a small quiet place south of Paris." " But 
it means trouble," he added proudly, " their sending 
us up, for we are never used except in attacks, and 
were being saved for the summer. Six hundred have 
been killed in my company since the beginning, so I 
have seen something of this war. Now my regiment 
is mixed up with two others, and altogether we make 
about four thousand men." 

As we talked, I realized that his was a different 
philosophy from that of the ordinary poilu that I had 
been carrying. Certainly he loved France and was at 
war for her; but soldiering was his business and fight- 
ing was his life. Nothing else counted. He had long 
since given up any thought of coming out alive, so 
the ordinary limitations of life and death did not 
affect him. He wanted to fight and last as long as 
possible to leave a famous name in his regiment, and 
to add as many citations as possible to the three 
medals he had already gained. He was the only man 
I ever met who was really eager to get back to the 
trenches, and he said to me with a smile when I 
stopped to let him off, "Thanks for the lift, mon 
vieux, but I hope you don't have to carry me back." 

After that we rod© north along the Meuse, through 

94 




LOADING THE AMBULANCE 



AN AMERICAN AMBULANCE AT VERDUN 

a beautiful country where the snow-covered hills, 
with their sky-lines of carefully pruned French trees, 
made me think of masterpieces of Japanese art. In 
the many little villages there was much excitement 
and activity with troops, artillery, and munitions 
being rushed through to the front, and the consequent 
wild rumors of great attacks and victories. Curiously 
enough, there were few who thought of defeat. They 
were all sure, even when a retreat was reported, that 
the French were winning, and that spirit of confidence 
had much to do with stopping the Germans. 

At about six in the evening we reached our destina- 
tion some forty miles northeast of Bar-le-Duc. The 
little village where we stopped had been a railroad 
centre until the day before, when the Germans 
started bombarding it. Now the town was evacuated, 
and the smoking station deserted. The place had 
ceased to exist, except for a hospital which was estab- 
lished on the southern edge of the town in a lovely 
old chateau, overlooking the Meuse. We were called 
up to the hospital as soon as we arrived to take such 
wounded as could be moved to the nearest available 
rail-head, which was ten miles away, on the main 
road, and four miles south of Verdun. We started out 
in convoy, but with the then conditions of traffic, it 
was impossible to stick together, and it took some of 
us till five o'clock the next morning to make the trip. 
That was the beginning of the attack for us, and the 
work of "evacuating" the wounded to the railway 
stations went steadily on until March 15. It was left 

95 



FRIENDS OF FRANCE 

to the driver to decide how many trips it was physi- 
cally possible for him to make in each twenty -four 
hours. There were more wounded than could be 
carried, and no one could be certain of keeping any 
kind of schedule with the roads as they then were. 

Sometimes we spent five or six hours waiting at a 
cross-road, while columns of troops and their equip- 
ment filed steadily by. Sometimes at night we could 
make a trip in two hours that had taken us ten in 
daylight. Sometimes, too, we crawled slowly to a 
station only to find it deserted, shells falling, and the 
hospital moved to some still more distant point of 
the line. Situations and conditions changed from 
day to day — almost from hour to hour. One day it 
was sunshine and spring, with roads six inches deep 
in mud, no traffic, and nothing to remind one of war, 
except the wounded in the car and the distant roar 
of the guns, which sounded like a giant beating a 
carpet. The next day it was winter again, with mud 
turned to ice, the roads blocked with troops, and the 
Germans turning hell loose with their heavy guns. 

In such a crisis as those first days around Verdun, 
ammunition and fresh men are the all-essential things. 
The wounded are the dockets, the "has-beens," and 
so must take second place. But the French are too 
gallant and tender-hearted not to make sacrifices. 
I remember one morning I was slapped off the road 
into a ditch with a broken axle, while passing a soli- 
tary camion. The driver got down, came over, and 
apologized for the accident, which was easily half 

96 



AN AMERICAN AMBULANCE AT VERDUN 

my fault. Then we unloaded four eases of "seventy- 
five" shells that he was carrying, and put my three 
wounded in on the floor of his car. He set out slowly 
and carefully up the ice-covered road, saying to me 
with a smile as he left, "Don't let the Boches get my 
marmites while I'm gone." For some time I sat 
there alone on the road, watching the shells break 
on a hill some miles away to the north, and wonder- 
ing when I could get word of my mishap back to 
the base. Then a staff car appeared down the road 
making its way along slowly and with difficulty, be- 
cause, being without chains, it skidded humorously 
with engine racing and the chauffeur trying vainly 
to steer. There was a captain of the Service des Autos 
sitting on the front seat, and he was so immacu- 
lately clean and well groomed that he seemed far 
away from work of any kind. But when the car 
stopped completely about halfway up the little hill 
on which I was broken down, he jumped out, took 
off his fur coat, and using it to give the rear wheels 
a grip on the ice, he swung it under the car. As the 
wheels passed over it, he picked it up and swung it 
under again. So the car climbed the hill and slid 
down the other slope round the curve and out of sight. 
It was just another incident that made me realize 
the spirit and energy of the French Automobile 
Service. But the captain had not solved any of my 
difficulties. He had been too busy to notice me or 
wonder why an American ambulance was sprawled 
in a ditch with four cases of shells alongside. 

97 



FRIENDS OF FRANCE 

I had been waiting there in the road about two 
hours when another American came by and took 
back word of my accident and of the parts necessary 
to set it right. Then about noon my friend came 
back in his camion to take up his cases of shells and 
report my wounded safe at the railway station. We 
lunched together on the front seat of the camion on 
bread, tinned " monkey meat," and red wine, while 
he told me stories about his life as a driver. He had 
been on his car then for more than twenty days with- 
out leaving it for food or sleep. That morning his 
"partner" had been wounded by a shell, so he had 
to drive all that day alone. Usually the two men drive 
two hours, turn and turn about; while one is driving, 
the other can eat, sleep, or read the day before yes- 
terday's newspaper. The French camions are organ- 
ized in sections of twenty. Usually each section 
works in convoy, and has its name and mark painted 
on its cars. I saw some with elephants or ships, some 
with hearts or diamonds, clubs or spades, some with 
dice — in fact, every imaginable symbol has been 
used to distinguish the thousands of sections in the 
service. The driver told me there were more than 
ten thousand trucks working between Verdun and 
Bar-le-Duc. There is great rivalry between the men 
of the several sections in matters of speed and load 
— especially between the sections of French and 
those of American or Italian cars. The American 
product has the record for speed, which is, however, 
offset by its frequent need of repair. 

98 



AN AMERICAN AMBULANCE AT VERDUN 

My friend told me about trips he had made up 
as far as the third-line trenches, and how they were 
using " seventy-fives" like machine-guns in dug-outs, 
where the shells were fired at "zero," so that they 
exploded immediately after leaving the mouth of the 
gun. The French, he said, would rather lose guns than 
men, and according to him, there were so many guns 
placed in the "live" parts of the Sector that the 
wheels touched, and so formed a continuous line. 

As soon as we had finished lunch he left me, and 
I waited for another two hours until the American 
staff car (in other surroundings I should call it an 
ordinary Ford touring-car with a red cross or so 
added) came along loaded with an extra "rear con- 
struction," and driven by the Chief himself. It took 
us another four hours to remove my battered rear 
axle and put in the new parts, but my car was back 
in service by midnight. 

That was a typical instance of the kind of accident 
that was happening, and there were about three 
"Ford casualties" every day. Thanks to the sim- 
plicity of the mechanism of the Ford, and to the fact 
that, with the necessary spare parts, the most serious 
indisposition can be remedied in a few hours, our 
Section has been at the front for a year — ten months 
in the Bois-le-Pretre, and two months at Verdun — 
without being sent back out of service for general re- 
pairs. In the Bois-le-Pretre we had carried the 
wounded from the dressing-stations to the first hos- 
pital, while at Verdun we were on service from the 

99 



FRIENDS OF FRANCE 

hospital to the rail-heads. In this latter work of 
Svacuation the trips were much longer, thirty to 
ninety miles, so the strain on the cars was correspond- 
ingly greater. As our cars, being small and fast, car- 
ried only three wounded on stretchers or five seated, 
our relative eflSciency was low in comparison with 
the wear and tear of the "running-gear" and the 
amount of oil and petrol used. But in the period from 
February 22 to March 13, twenty days, with an 
average of eighteen cars working, we carried 2046 
wounded 18,915 miles. This would be no record on 
good open roads, but with the conditions I have al- 
ready described I think it justified the existence of 
our volunteer organization — if it needed justifica- 
tion. Certainly the French thought so, but they are 
too generous to be good judges. 

Except for our experiences on the road, there was 
little romance in the daily routine. True, we were 
under shell fire, and had to sleep in our cars or in a 
much-inhabited hayloft, and eat in a little inn, half 
farmhouse and half stable, where the food was none 
too good and the cooking none too clean; but we all 
realized that the men in the trenches would have 
made of such conditions a luxurious paradise, so that 
kept us from thinking of it as anything more than a 
rather strenuous "camping out." 

During the first days of the attack, the roads were 
filled with refugees from the town of Verdun and the 
country north of it. As soon as the bombardment 
started, civilians were given five hours to leave, and 

100 



AN AMERICAN AMBULANCE AT VERDUN 

we saw them — old men, women, and children — 
struggling along through the snow on their way south. 
It was but another of those sad migrations that occur 
so often in the zone des armSes. The journey was 
made difficult and often dangerous for them by the 
columns of skidding trucks, so the more timid took 
to the fields or the ditches at the roadside. They 
were for the most part the petits bourgeois who had 
kept their shops open until the last minute, to make 
the town gay for the troops, who filed through the 
Promenade de la Digue in an endless queue on their 
way to and from the trenches. Most of them had 
saved nothing but the clothes on their backs, though 
I saw one old woman courageously trundling a 
barrow overflowing with laces, post-cards, bonbons 
(doubtless the famous Dragees verdunoises), and other 
similar things which had been part of her stock-in- 
trade, and with which she would establish a Verdun 
souvenir shop when she found her new home. There 
were many peasant carts loaded with every imagin- 
able article of household goods from stoves to bird 
cages; but no matter what else a cart might contain, 
there was always a mattress with the members of 
the family, old and young, bouncing along on top. 
So ubiquitous was this mattress that I asked about 
it, and was told that the French peasant considers it 
the most important of his Lares, for it is there his 
babies are born and his old people die — there, too, 
is the family bank, the hiding-place for the bos de 
laine, 

101 



FRIENDS OF FRANCE 

All the people, no matter what their class or sta- 
tion, were excited. Some were resigned, some weep- 
ing, some quarrelling, but every face reflected terror 
and suffering, for these derelicts had been suddenly 
torn from the ruins of their old homes and their old 
lives after passing through two days of the heaviest 
bombardment the world has ever seen. 

I did not wonder at their grief or terror when I had 
seen the town from which they fled. Sometimes it is 
quiet, with no shells and na excitement; at others it 
is a raging hell, a modern Pompeii in the ruining. 
Often I passed through the town, hearing and seeing 
nothing to suggest that any enemy artillery was 
within range. But one morning I went up to take a 
doctor to a near-by hospital, and had just passed 
under one of the lovely old twelfth-century gates, 
with its moat and towers, when the Germans be- 
gan their morning hate. I counted one hundred and 
fifty shells, arrives, in the first quarter of an hour. 

After making my way up on the old fortifications in 
the northeastern quarter, I had an excellent view of 
the whole city — a typical garrison town of northern 
France spreading over its canals and river up to the 
Citadel and Cathedral on the heights. Five and six 
shells were shrieking overhead at the same time, and 
a corresponding number of houses in the centre of 
the town going up in dust and debris, one after an- 
other, almost as fast as I could count. 

During this bedlam a military gendarme strolled 
up as unconcerned as if he had been looking out for a 

102 



AN AMERICAN AMBULANCE AT VERDUN 

stranger in the Champs Elysees. He told me about 
a dug-out that was somewhere " around the corner." 
But we both got so interested watching the shells 
and their effect that we stayed where we were. The 
gendarme had been in the town long enough to be- 
come an authority on bombardments, and he could 
tell me the different shells and what they were hitting, 
from the colored smoke which rose after each explo- 
sion and hung like a pall over the town in the wind- 
less spring air. When the shells fell on the Cathe- 
dral — often there were three breaking on and around 
it at the same time — there sprang up a white cloud, 
while on the red tiles and zinc roofs they exploded 
in brilliant pink-and-yellow puffs. The air was filled 
with the smell of the burning celluloid and coal-tar 
products used in the manufacture of the high explo- 
sive and incendiary shells. It was very impressive, 
and even my friend the gendarme said, '' C'est chic, 
n*est-ce pas? It is the heaviest rain we have had for 
several days." Then he pointed to the left where a col- 
umn of flame and smoke, heavier than that from the 
shells, was rising, and said, " Watch them now, and 
you'll understand their system, the cochons. That's 
a house set afire with their incendiary shells, and now 
they will throw shrapnel around it to keep our fire- 
men from putting it out." And so they did, for I could 
see the white puffs of the six-inch shrapnel shells 
breaking in and around the column of black smoke, 
which grew denser all the time. Then two German 
Taubes, taking advantage of the smoke, came over 

103 



FRIENDS OF FRANCE 

and dropped bombs, for no other reason than to add 
terror to the confusion. But the eighty firemen, a 
brave little band brought up from Paris with their 
hose-carts and engine, refused to be confused or 
terrified. Under the shells and smoke we could see 
the streams of water playing on the burning house. 
**They are working from the cellars," said the gen- 
darme. It was fortunate there was no wind, for that 
house was doomed, and but for the fact that all the 
buildings were stone, the fire would have spread over 
all that quarter of the town despite the gallantry of 
the firemen. 

The bombardment continued steadily for about 
two hours and a half, until several houses were well 
alight and many others completely destroyed. Then 
about noon it stopped as suddenly as it had started. 
I wanted to go down and watch the firemen work, 
but the gendarme, who had produced an excellent 
bottle of no ordinary pinardy said, " Wait a while, mon 
vieux, that is part of the system. They have only 
stopped to let the people come out. In a few min- 
utes it will start again, when they will have more 
chance of killing somebody." 

But for once he was wrong, and after waiting with 
him for half an hour, I went down to the first house 
I had seen catch fire. The firemen were still there, 
working with hose and axe to prevent the fire from 
spreading. The four walls of the house were still 
standing, but inside there was nothing but a furnace 
which glowed and leaped into flame with every 

104 



AN AMERICAN AMBULANCE AT VERDUN 

draught of air, so that the sparks flew over the neigh- 
boring houses, and started other fires which the fire- 
men were busy controlHng. These pompiers are no 
longer civilians. The black uniform and gay brass 
and leather helmet of Paris fashion have been re- 
placed with the blue-gray of the poilu, with the regu- 
lation steel shrapnel casque or hourguignotte. The 
French press has had many accounts of their heroism 
since the beginning of the attack. Certainly if any 
of the town is left, it will be due to their efforts among 
the ruins. There are only eighty of them in the town. 
Half of them are men too old for ^* active service, ^^ yet 
they have stayed there for two months working night 
and day under the shells, with the strain of the bom- 
bardment added to the usual dangers from falling 
walls and fire. They are still as gay and eager as ever. 
Their spirit and motto is the same as that of every 
soldier and civilian who is doing hard work in these 
hard times. They all say, "It is war," or more often, 
"It is for France." 

I left them saving what they could of the house, 
and walked on over the river through the town. It 
is truly the Abomination of Desolation. The air was 
heavy and hot with the smell of explosives and the 
smoke from the smouldering ruins. Not a sound 
broke the absolute quiet and not a soul was in sight. 
I saw two dogs and a cat all slinking about on the 
search for food, and evidently so crazed with terror 
that they could not leave their old homes. Finally, 
crossing over the canal, where the theatre, now a heap 

105 



FRIENDS OF FRANCE 

of broken beams and stones, used to stand, I met an 
old bearded Territorial leaning over the bridge with 
a net in his hand to dip out fish killed by the explo- 
sion of the shells in the water. He did not worry 
about the danger of his position on the bridge, and, 
like all true fishermen, when they have had good 
luck, he was happy and philosophical. "One must 
live," said he, "and it's very amiable of the Boches 
to keep us in fish with their marmites, n'est-ce pas, 
mon vieuxf We chatted for a while of bombard- 
ments, falling walls, and whether the Germans would 
reach Verdun. He, of course, like every soldier in 
that region, was volubly sure they would not. Then 
I went up on the hill towards the Cathedral, by the 
old library, which was standing with doors and win- 
dows wide open, and with the well-ordered books 
still on the tables and in the shelves. As yet it is un- 
touched by fire or shell, but too near the bridge to 
escape for long. 

I continued my way through streets filled with 
fallen wires, broken glass, and bits of shell. Here 
and there were dead horses and broken wagons 
caught in passing to or from the lines. There is 
nothing but ruins left of the lovely residential quar- 
ter below the Cathedral. The remaining walls of 
the houses, gutted by flame and shell, stand in a 
wavering line along a street, blocked with debris, 
and with furniture and household articles that the 
firemen have saved. The furniture is as safe in the 
middle of the street as anywhere else in the town. 

106 



AN AMERICAN AMBULANCE AT VERDUN 

As I passed along I could hear from time to time the 
crash and roar of falling walls, and see the rising 
clouds of white stone dust that has settled thickly 
everywhere. 

The Cathedral, with its Bishop's Palace and clois- 
ters, — all fine old structures of which the founda- 
tions were laid in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, 
— must, from its commanding position overlooking 
the town, be singled out for destruction. I watched 
ten shells strike the Cathedral that one morning, and 
some of them were the terrible 380's, the shells of 
the sixteen-inch mortars, which make no noise as 
they approach and tear through to the ground before 
their explosion. 

The interior of the Cathedral, blurred with a half- 
inch layer of stone dust, is in most "unchurchly" 
disorder. Four or five shells have torn large holes 
through the roof of the nave, and twice as many more 
have played havoc with the chapels and aisles at the 
side. One has fallen through the gilded canopy over 
the high altar and broken one of the four supporting 
columns, which before were monoliths like those of 
St. Peter's at Rome. Of course, most of the stained- 
glass windows are scattered in fragments over the 
floor, and through the openings on the southern side 
I could see the ruins of the cloisters, with some chairs 
and a bed literally falling into them from a room of 
the Bishop's Palace above. 

This destruction of the Cathedral is typical of the 
purposeless barbarity of the whole proceeding. The 

107 



FRIENDS OF FRANCE 

wiping out of the town can serve no military pur- 
pose. There are no stores of munitions or railway 
communications to be demolished. Naturally there 
are no troops quartered in the town, and now all 
extensive movements of convoys are conducted by 
other roads than those leading through the town. 
Yet the bombardment continues day after day, and 
week after week. The Germans are sending in about 
£5,000,000 worth of shells a month. "It's spite," a 
'poilu said to me; "they have made up their minds to 
destroy the town since they can't capture it; but it 
will be very valuable as an iron mine after the war." * 

Frank Hoyt Gailor 

* Since the writing of this chapter, five Sections of the Ambulance have 
been sent to the vicinity of Verdun: Section 3 to the region about Douau- 
mont; Section 4 to Mort Homme; Section 8 to the neighborhood of the 
fortress of Vaux; Section 2 to the immediate neighborhood of Verdun; 
and Section 1 to the region of Fort Souville and Fort St. Michel. 




VII 

ONE OF THE SECTIONS AT VERDUN 
I 

It gave us rather a wrench to leave Pont-£t-Mousson. 
The Section had been quartered there since April, 
1915, and we were attached to the quaint town and 
to the friends we had made. The morning of our de- 
parture was warm and clear. Walking along the con- 
voy, which had formed in the road before our villa, 
came the poiluSy and shook hands with each con- 
ducteur. ^^Au revoir, monsieur,*^ *'Au revoir, Paul/' 
** Bonne chance, Pierre! '^ We took a last look at the 
town which had sheltered us, at the scene of the most 
dramatic moments in our lives. Above the tragic sil- 
houette of a huddle of ruined houses rose the grassy 
slopes of the great ridge crowned by the Bois-le- 
Pretre, the rosy morning mists were lifting from the 
shell-shattered trees, a golden sun poured down a 
spring-like radiance. Suddenly a great cloud of gray- 
ish white smoke rose over the haggard wood and 
melted slowly away in the northeast wind; an instant 
later, a reverberating boom signalled the explosion of 
a mine in the trenches. There was a shrill whistle, our 
lieutenant raised liis hand, and the convoy swung 
down the road to Dieulouard. **Au revoir les AmSri- 

109 



FRIENDS OF FRANCE 

cains! " cried our friends. A little, mud-slopped, blue- 
helmeted handful, they waved to us till we turned the 
corner. *' Au revoir, les AmSricainsr* 

II 

We left Pont-a-Mousson imagining that our Sec- 
tion was in for a month's repairing and tinkering at 
the military motor park, but as we came towards B. 
our opinion changed. We began to pass file after file 
of troops, many of them the khaki-clad troupes (Tat- 
toque, bull-necked Zouaves, and wiry, fine-featured 
Arabs. A regiment was halted at a crossroad; some of 
the men had taken of! their jackets and hung them 
to the cross-beam of a wayside crucifix. On the grass 
before it, in the circle of shade made by the four trees 
which pious Meusian custom here plants round a 
Calvaire, sprawled several powerful-looking fellows; 
one lay flat on his belly with his face in his Turkish 
cap. Hard by, in a little copse, the regimental kitchen 
was smoking and steaming away. A hunger-breeding 
smell of la soupe, la bonne soupe, assailed our nostrils. 
Quite by himself, an older man was skilfully cutting a 
slice of bread with a shiny, curved knife. The rooks 
eddied above the bare brown fields. Just below was a 
village with a great cloud of wood smoke hanging 
over it. 

Late in the afternoon we were assigned quarters in 
the barracks of B. 



110 



ONE OF THE SECTIONS AT VERDUN 

III 

At B. we found an English Section that had been 
as suddenly displaced as our own. Every minute 
loaded camions ground into town and disappeared 
towards the east, troops of all kinds came in, flick, 
flacky the sun shining on the barrels of the lebels, a 
train of giant mortars, mounted on titanic trucks and 
drawn by big motor lorries, crashed over the pave- 
ments and vanished somewhere. Some of our con- 
ducteurs made friends with the English drivers, and 
swapped opinions as to what was in the wind. One 
heard, "Well, those Frenchies have got something up 
their sleeve. We were in the battle of Champarng, 
and it began just like this." A voice from our Ameri- 
can West began, "Say — what kind of carburetors do 
you birds use.^" New England asked, "How many 
cars have you got?" And London, on being shown 
the stretcher arrangements of our cars, exclaimed, 
"That ain't so dusty, — eh, wot?" Round us, rising 
to the full sea of the battle, the tide of war surged and 
disappeared. At dusk a company of dragoons, big 
helmeted men on big horses, trotted by, their blue 
mantles and mediseval casques giving them the air of 
crusaders. At night the important corners of the 
streets were lit with cloth transparencies, with "Ver- 
dun " and a great black arrow painted on them. 
Night and day, going as smoothly as if they were 
linked by an invisible chain, went the hundred con- 
voys of motor lorries. There was a sense of some- 
Ill 



FRIENDS OF FRANCE 

thing great in the air — a sense of apprehension. 
*^Les Boches vont attaquer Verdun.'* 

IV 

On the 21st the order came to go to M. The Boches 
had made their first attack that morning; this, how- 
ever, we did not know. At M., a rather unlovely 
eighteenth-century chateau stands in a park built out 
on the meadows of the Meuse. The flooded river 
flowed round the dark pines. At night one could hear 
the water roaring under the bridges. The chateau, 
which had been a hospital since the beginning of the 
war, reeked with ether and iodoform; pasty-faced, 
tired attendants unloaded mud, cloth, bandages, and 
blood that turned out to be human beings; an over- 
wrought doctor-in-chief screamed contradictory or- 
ders at everybody, and flared into crises of hysterical 
rage. 

Ambulance after ambulance came from the lines 
full of clients; kindly hands pulled out the stretch- 
ers, and bore them to the wash-room. This was in the 
cellar of the dove-cote, in a kind of salt-shaker turret. 
Snip, snap went the scissors of the brancardiers, who 
looked after l^e bath, — good souls these two; the 
uniforms were slit from mangled limbs. The wounded 
lay naked in their stretchers while the attendant 
daubed them with a hot soapy sponge; the blood ran 
from their wounds through the stretcher to the floor, 
and seeped into the cracks of the stones. A lean, 
bearded man, closed his eyes over the agony of his 

m 



ONE OF THE SECTIONS AT VERDUN 

opened entrails and died there. I thought of Henner's 
dead Christ. 

Outside, mingling with the roaring of the river, 
came the great, terrible drumming of the bombard- 
ment. An endless file of troops were passing down 
the great road. Night came on. Our ambulances 
were in a little side street at right angles to the great 
road; their lamps flares beat fiercely on a little section 
of the great highway. Suddenly, plunging out of the 
darkness into the intense radiance of the acetylene 
beams, came a battery of 75 's, the helmeted men 
leaning over on the horses, the guns rattling and the 
harness clanking, a swift picture of movement that 
plunged again into darkness. And with the darkness, 
the whole horizon became brilliant with cannon fire. 



We were well within the horseshoe of German fire 
that surrounded the French lines. It was between 
midnight and one o'clock, the sky was deep and clear, 
with big ice-blue winter stars. We halted at a certain 
road to wait our chance to deliver our wounded. It 
was a meUe of beams of light, of voices, of obscure 
motions, sounds. Refugees went by, decent people 
in black, the women being escorted by a soldier. One 
saw sad, harassed faces. A woman came out of the 
turmoil, carrying a cat in a canary cage; the animal 
swept the gilded bars with curved claws, and its eyes 
shone black and crazily. Others went by pushing 
baby carriages full to the brim with knick-knacks 

113 



FRIENDS OF FRANCE 

and packages. Some pushed a kind of barrow. At 
the very edge of earth and sky was a kind of violet- 
white inferno, the thousand finger-like jabs of the 
artillery shot unceasing to the stars, the great semi- 
circular aureole flares of the shorter pieces were seen 
a hundred times a minute. Over the moorland came 
a terrible roaring such as a river might make tum- 
bling through some subterranean abyss. A few miles 
below, a dull, ruddy smouldering in the sky told of 
fires in Verdun. The morning clouded over, the 
dawn brought snow. Even in the daytime the great 
cannon flashes could be seen in the low, brownish 
snow-clouds. 

On the way to M., two horses that had died of ex- 
haustion lay in a frozen ditch. Ravens, driven from 
their repast by the storm, cawed hungrily in the trees. 

VI 

We slept in the loft of one of the buildings that 
formed the left wing of the courtyard of the castle. 
To enter it, we had to pass through a kind of lumber- 
room on the ground floor in which the hospital coffins 
were kept. Above was a great, dim loft, rich in a 
greasy, stably smell, a smell of horses and sweaty 
leather, the odor of a dirty harness room. At the end 
of the room, on a kind of raised platform, was the 
straw in which we lay; a crazy, sagging shelf, covered 
with oily dust, bundles of clothes, knapsacks, books, 
candle ends, and steel helmets, ran along the wall over 
our heads. All night long, the horses underneath us 

114 



ONE OF THE SECTIONS AT VERDUN 

squealed, pounded, and kicked. I see in the lilac 
dawn of a winter morning the yellow light of an 
officer's lantern, and hear the call, "Up, boys — 
there's a call to B." The bundles in the dirty blan- 
kets groan; unshaven, unwashed faces turn tired eyes 
to the lantern; some, completely worn out, lie in a 
kind of sleepy stupor. A wicked screaming whistle 
passes over our heads, and the shell, bursting on a 
nearby location, startles the dawn. 

The snow begins to fall again. The river has fallen, 
and the air is sickish with the dank smell of the un- 
covered meadows. A regiment on the way to the 
front has encamped just beyond the hospital. The 
men are trying to build little shelters. A handful of 
fagots is blazing in the angle of two walls; a handful 
of grave-faced men stand round it, stamping their 
feet. In the hospital yard, the stretcher-bearers un- 
load the body of an officer who has died in the ambu- 
lance. The dead man's face is very calm and peace- 
ful, though the bandages indicate terrible wounds. 
The cannon flashes still jab the snowy sky. 

VII 

The back of the attack is broken, and we are be- 
ginning to get a little rest. During the first week our 
cars averaged runs of two hundred miles a day. And 
this over roads chewed to pieces, and through the 
most difficult traffic. In one of the places, there was a 
formidable shell gantlet to run. 

This morning I drove to B. with a poilu. He 

115 



FRIENDS OF FRANCE 



asked me what I did en civil, I told him. "I am a 
pdtissiefy" he replied. "When this business is over, 
we shall have some cakes together in my good warm 
shop, and my wife shall make us some chocolate.'* 
He gave me his address. A regiment of young men 
marched singing down the moorland road to the 
battle-line. ''Ah, les braves enfantsr* said the pastry 
cook. 

Henry Sheahan 




VIII 

THE SECTION IN FLANDERS 

The Section which is here designated as the "Sec- 
tion in Flanders'* has at least two distinguishing 
characteristics. This was the first Section of substan- 
tial proportions to be geographically separated from 
the "American Ambulance" at Neuilly and turned 
over to the French army. Until it left "for the front" 
our automobiles had worked either to and from the 
Neuilly hospital, as an evacuating base, or, if temp- 
orarily detached for service elsewhere, they had gone 
out in very small units. 

Secondarily, it has the distinction of having been 
moved about more frequently and of having been at- 
tached to more diverse army units than any other of 
our Sections. During the first year of its history, it 
was located successively in almost every part of Flan- 
ders still subject to the Allies : first at Dunkirk and 
Malo, then at Poperinghe and Elverdinghe, then at 
Coxyde and Nieuport, then at Crombeke and Woes- 
ten. Then after a full year in Flanders it was moved 
to Beauvais for revision, and since then it has worked 
in the region between Soissons and Compiegne and 
subsequently in the neighborhood of Mericourt-sur- 
Somme. 

During most of the time the men have been quar- 
tered in barns and stables, sleeping in lofts in the hay 

117 



FRIENDS OF FRANCE 

or straw, or on stretchers on the floor, or inside their 
ambulances, or, during the summer, on the ground, 
in improvised tents in the open fields. 

The opportunities for comfortable writing have 
been few, and no complete story of the Section's 
experiences has ever been written. The following 
pages give only glimpses of a history which has been 
crammed with incidents and impressions worth re- 
cording. 

The Section's story began in the cold wet days of 
early January, 1915, when twenty men with twelve 
cars left Paris for the north. We spent our first night 
en route in the shadow of the Beauvais Cathedral, 
passing the following day through many towns filled 
with French troops, and then, as we crossed into the 
British Sector, through towns and villages abound- 
ing with the khaki-clad soldiers of England and her 
colonies and the turbaned troops of British India. 
The second night we stayed at Saint-Omer, the men 
sleeping in their cars in the centre of the town square, 
and the third morning, passing out of the British 
Sector once more into the French lines, we arrived 
in Dunkirk where our work began. 

We were at once assigned to duty in connection 
with a hospital established in the freight shed of a 
railway station, and from then on for many a long 
day our duty was to carry wounded and sick in a 
never-ending stream from the station, where they 
arrived from the front by four or five daily trains, to 
the thirty or more hospitals in and about the city. 

118 




02 

w 

^ H 

. o 



THE SEiCTION IN FLANDERS 

Every school, barrack, and other large building in the 
town (even the public theatre) or in the neighboring 
towns within ten miles of Dunkirk, seemed to have 
been turned into a hospital. Our work was extremely 
useful, the Section carrying scores and scores of sick 
and wounded, day after day, week in and out. The 
first incident of an exciting nature came on the second 
day. 

We were nearly all at the station, quietly waiting 
for the next train, when high up in the air there ap- 
peared first one, then three, and finally seven grace- 
ful aeroplanes. We watched, fascinated, and were 
the more so when a moment later we learned that 
they were Taubes. It seemed hard to realize that we 
were to witness one of the famous raids that have 
made Dunkirk even more famous than the raider 
Jean Bart himself had ever done. Explosions were 
heard on all sides and the sky was soon spotted with 
puffs of white smoke from the shells fired at the in- 
truders. The rattle of the mitrailleuses and the bang 
of the 75 's became a background of sound for the 
more solemn boom of the shells. A few moments 
later there was a bang not thirty yards away and we 
were showered with bits of stone. We stood spell- 
bound until the danger was over and then foolishly 
jumped behind our cars for protection. 

This incident of our early days was soon thrown 
into unimportance by other raids, each more interest- 
ing than the last. One of them s^tands out in memory 
above all the rest. It was a perfect moonlit night, 

119 



FRIENDS OF FRANCE 

quite cloudless. Four of my companions and I were 
on night duty in the railway yard. About eleven the 
excitement started, and to say it commenced with a 
bang is not slang but true. Rather it commenced 
with many bangs. The sight was superb and the ex- 
citement intense. One could hear the whirr of the 
motors, and when they presented a certain angle to 
the moon the machines showed up like enormous 
silver flies. One had a delicious feeling of danger, and 
to stand there and hear the crash of the artillery, the 
buzzing of the aeroplanes, the swish of the bombs as 
they fell and the crash as they exploded, made an un- 
forgettable experience. One could plainly hear the 
bombs during their flight, for each has a propeller at- 
tached which prevents its too rapid descent, thus in- 
suring its not entering so far into the ground as to ex- 
plode harmlessly. To hear them coming and to wonder 
if it would be 3^our turn next was an experience new 
to us all. The bombardment continued for perhaps 
an hour and then our work began. I was sent down 
to the quay and brought back two wounded men and 
one who had been killed, and all my companions had 
about the same experience. One took a man from a 
half -demolished house; another, an old woman who 
had been killed in her bed; another, three men badly 
mutilated who had been peacefully walking on the 
street. An hour later all was quiet — except perhaps 
the nerves of some of the men. 

About this time our work was enlivened by the ap- 
pearance of the one and only real ambulance war dog 

no 



THE SECTION IN FLANDERS 

and the official mascot of the squad. And my personal 
dog at that! I was very jealous on that point and 
rarely let him ride on another machine. I got him at 
Zuydcoote. He was playing about, and as he ap- 
peared to be astray and was very friendly, I allowed 
him to get on the seat and stay there. But I had to 
answer so many questions about him that it became a 
bore, and finally I prepared a speech to suit all oc- 
casions, and when any one approached me used to say, 
''Non, madame, il n'est pas Americain, il est FranQais; 
je Tai trouve ici dans le Nord." One day a rosy- 
cheeked young lady approached us, called the dog 
"Dickie" and I started my speech. "II ne s'appelle 
pas Dickie, madame, mais Khaki, et vous savez il est 
Frangais." "Je sais bien, monsieur, puisqu'il est a 
moi." I felt sorry and chagrined, but not for long, as 
a moment later the lady presented him to me. 

We will skip over the humdrum life of the next few 
weeks to a night in April when we were suddenly 
ordered to the station at about 1 a.m. It was, I think, 
April 22. "The Germans have crossed the Yser" 
was the news that sent a thrill through all of us. 
Would they this time reach Calais or would they be 
pushed back? We had no time to linger and wonder. 
All night long we worked unloading the trains that 
followed each other without pause. The Germans had 
used a new and infernal method of warfare; they had 
released a cloud of poisonous gas which, with a favora- 
ble wind, had drifted down and completely enveloped 
the Allies' trenches. The tales of this first gas attack 

121 



FRIENDS OF FRANCE 

were varied and fantastic, but all agreed on the sup- 
prise and the horror of it. Trains rolled in filled with 
huddled figures, some dying, some more lightly 
touched, but even these coughed so that they were 
unable to speak coherently. All told the same story, of 
having become suddenly aware of a strange odor, and 
then of smothering and choking and falling like flies. 
In the midst of all this had come a hail of shrapnel. 
The men were broken as I have never seen men 
broken. In the months of our work we had become so 
accustomed to dreadful sights and to suffering as to 
be little affected by them. The sides and floor of our 
cars had often been bathed in blood; our ears had not 
infrequently been stirred by the groans of men in 
agony. But these sufferers from the new form of at- 
tack inspired in us all feelings of pity beyond any that 
we had ever felt before. To see these big men bent 
double, convulsed and choking, was heartbreaking 
and hate-inspiring. 

At ten o'clock we were ordered to Poperinghe, 
about twenty miles from Dunkirk and three miles 
from Ypres, where one of the biggest battles of the 
war was just getting under way. The town was filled 
with refugees from Ypres, which was in flames and 
uninhabitable. Through Poperinghe and beyond it 
we slowly wound our way in the midst of a solid 
stream of motor trucks, filled with dust-covered 
soldiers coming up to take their heroic part in stem- 
ming the German tide. We were to make our head- 
quarters for the time at Elverdinghe, but as we ap- 

122 




A "POSTE DE SECOURS" IN FLANDERS 




WAITING AT A "POSTE DE SECOURS' 



THE SECTION IN FLANDERS 

proached our destination the road was being shelled 
and we put on our best speed to get through the 
danger zone. This destination turned out to be a 
small chateau in Elverdinghe, where a first-aid hos- 
pital had been established. All round us batteries 
of French and English guns were thundering their 
aid to the men in the trenches some two miles away. 
In front of us and beside us were the famous 75's, 
the 90's, and 120's, and farther back the great Eng- 
lish marine guns, and every few seconds we could 
hear their big shells passing over us. An automobile 
had just been put out of commission by a shell, be- 
fore we reached the chateau, so we had to change 
our route and go up another road. The chateau pre- 
sented a terrible scene. In every room straw and 
beds and stretchers, and mangled men everywhere. 
We started to work and for twenty-six hours there 
was scarcely time for pause. Our work consisted in 
going down to the pastes de secourSy or first-aid sta- 
tions, situated in the Flemish farmhouses, perhaps 
four hundred or five hundred yards from the trenches, 
where the wounded get their first primitive dress- 
ings, and then in carrying the men back to the dress- 
ing-stations where they were dressed again, and 
then in taking them farther to the rear to the hos- 
pitals outside of shell range. The roads were bad 
and we had to pass a constant line of convoys. At 
night no lights were allowed and one had to be es- 
pecially careful not to jolt his passengers. Even 
the best of drivers cannot help bumping on the 

123 



FRIENDS OF FRANCE 

pavements of Belgium, but when for an hour each 
cobble brings forth a groan from the men inside, it 
is hard to bear. Often they are out of their heads. 
They call then for their mothers — they order the 
charge -— to cease firing — they see visions of beau- 
tiful fields — of cool water — and sometimes they 
die before the trip is over. 

At Elverdinghe the bombardment was tremen- 
dous; the church was crumbling bit by bit. The 
guns were making too great a noise for sleep. About 
4 P.M. we started out to find something to eat. A 
problem this, for the only shop still open was run by 
an old couple too scared to cook. No food for hours 
at a time gives desperate courage, so on we went 
until we found in a farmhouse some ham and eggs 
which we cooked ourselves. It was not altogether 
pleasant, for the whole place was filled with dust, 
the house next door having just been demolished by 
a shell. However, the machines were untouched, 
although a shell burst near them, and we hurried 
back for another night's work. 

The following morning we decided to stay in Elver- 
dinghe and try to get a little sleep, but no sooner had 
we turned in than we were awakened by the order 
to get out of the chateau at once, as we were under 
fire. While I was putting on my shoes the window 
fell in and part of the ceiling came along. Then an 
order came to evacuate the place of all its wounded, 
and we were busy for hours getting them to a place 
of safety. Shells were falling all about. One great 

124 



THE SECTION IN FLANDERS 

tree in front of me was cut completely off and an 
auto near it was riddled with the fragments. For 
two weeks this battle lasted. We watched our little 
village gradually disintegrating under the German 
shells. The cars were many times under more or less 
heavy artillery and rifle fire and few there were with- 
out shrapnel holes. 

The advantage of our little cars over the bigger 
and heavier ambulances was demonstrated many 
times. On narrow roads, with a ditch on each side, 
choked with troops, ammunition wagons, and ve- 
hicles of all sorts moving in both directions, horses 
sometimes rearing in terror at exploding shells, at 
night in the pitch dark, except for the weird light 
from the illuminating rockets, the little cars could 
squeeze through somehow. If sometimes a wheel or 
two would fall into a shell hole, four or five willing 
soldiers were enough to lift it out and on its way 
undamaged. If a serious collision occurred, two 
hours' work sufliced to repair it. Always "on the 
job," always efficient, the little car, the subject of a 
thousand jokers, gained the admiration of every one. 

To most of the posts we could go only after dark, 
as they were in sight of the German lines. Once we 
did go during the day to a post along the banks of 
the Yser Canal, but it was too dangerous and the 
General ordered such trips stopped. These few 
trips were splendid, however. To see the men in the 
trenches and hear the screech of the shells at the 
very front was thrilling, indeed. At times a rifle bul- 

125 



FRIENDS OF FRANCE 

let would find its way over the bank and flatten itself 
against a near-by farmhouse. One was safer at night, 
of course, but the roads were so full of marmite holes 
and fallen trees that they were hard to drive along. 
We could only find our way by carefully avoiding the 
dark spots on the road. Not a man, however, who 
did not feel a hundred times repaid for any danger 
and anxiety of these trips in realizing the time and 
suffering he had saved the wounded. Had we not 
been there with our little cars, the wounded would 
have been brought back on hand-stretchers or in 
wagons far less comfortable and much more slow. 

Finally the second battle of the Yser was over. The 
front settled down again to the comparative quiet of 
trench warfare. Meanwhile some of us were begin- 
ning to feel the strain and were ordered back to Dun- 
kirk for a rest. We reached there in time to witness 
one of the most exciting episodes of the war. It was 
just at this time that the Germans sprang another 
surprise — the bombardment of Dunkirk from guns 
more than twenty miles away. Shells that would 
obliterate a whole house or make a hole in the ground 
thirty feet across would fall and explode without even 
a warning whistle such as ordinary shells make when 
approaching. We were in the station working on our 
cars at about 9.30 in the morning, when, out of a 
clear, beautiful sky, the first shell fell. We thought it 
was only from an aeroplane, as Dunkirk seemed far 
from the range of other guns. The dog seemed to 
know better, for he jumped off the seat of my car and 

126 



THE SECTION IN FLANDERS 

came whining under me. A few minutes later came a 
second and then a third shell. Still not knowing from 
where they came, we got out our machines and went 
to where the clouds of smoke gave evidence that they 
had fallen. I had supposed myself by this time some- 
thing of a veteran, but when I went into the first 
dismantled house and saw what it looked like inside, 
the street seemed by far a safer place. The house was 
only a mass of torn timbers, dirt, and debris. Even 
people in the cellar had been wounded. We worked 
all that day, moving from place to place, sometimes 
almost smothered by dust and plaster from the ex- 
plosion of shells in our vicinity. We cruised slowly 
around the streets waiting for the shells to come and 
then went to see if any one had been hit. Sometimes, 
when houses were demolished, we found every one 
safe in the cellars, but there were many hurt, of course, 
and quite a number killed. The first day I had three 
dead and ten terribly wounded to carry, soldiers, 
civilians, and women too. In one of the earlier bom- 
bardments a shell fell in the midst of a funeral, de- 
stroying almost every vestige of the hearse and body 
and all of the mourners. Another day one of them hit 
a group of children at play in front of the billet where 
at one time we lodged, and it was said never to have 
been known how many children had been killed, so 
complete was their annihilation. 

For a time every one believed the shells had been 
fired from marine guns at sea, but sooner or later it 
was proved that they came from land guns, twenty or 

127 



FRIENDS OF FRANCE 

more miles away, and as these bombardments were 
repeated in succeeding weeks, measures were taken to 
safeguard the public from them. Although the shells 
weighed nearly a ton, their passage through the air 
took almost a minute and a half, and their arrival in 
later days was announced by telephone from the 
French trenches as soon as the explosion on their de- 
parture had been heard. At Dunkirk a siren was 
blown on the summit of a central tower, giving people 
at least a minute in which to seek shelter in their 
cellars before the shell arrived. Whenever we heard 
the sirens our duty was to run into the city and search 
for the injured, and during the succeeding weeks 
many severely wounded were carried in our ambu- 
lances, including women and children — so fre- 
quently the victims of German methods of warfare. 
The American ambulance cars were the only cars on 
duty during these different bombardments and the 
leader of the Section was awarded the Croix de 
Guerre for the services which they performed. 

In the summer a quieter period set in. Sunny 
weather made life agreeable and in their greater leis- 
ure the men were able to enjoy sea-bathing and walks 
among the sand dunes. A regular ambulance service 
was kept up in Dunkirk and the surrounding towns, 
but part of the Section was moved to Coxyde, a small 
village in the midst of the dunes near the sea between 
the ruined city of Nieuport and La Panne, the resi- 
dence of the Belgian King and Queen. Here we 
worked for seven weeks, among the Zouaves and the 

128 




A GROUP OF AMERICAN DRIVERS IN NORTHERN FRANCE 




THE CATHEDRAL IN NIEUPORT, JULY, 1915 



THE SECTION IN FLANDERS 

Fusiliers Marins, so famous the world over as the 
" heroes of the Yser." 

Then once more we were moved to the district 
farther South known as Old Flanders, where our 
headquarters were in a Flemish farm, adjacent to the 
town of Crombeke. The landscape hereabout is flat 
as a billiard-table, only a slight rise now and again 
breaking the view. Our work consisted in bringing 
back wounded from the vicinity of the Yser Canal 
which then marked the line of the enemy's trenches, 
but owing to the flatness of the country we had to 
work chiefly at night. Canals dotted with slow-mov- 
ing barges are everywhere, and as our work was often 
across-country affair, looking for bridges added to the 
length of our runs. Here we stayed from August to 
the middle of December, during which we did the 
ambulance work for the entire French front between 
the English and the Belgian Sectors. 

Just as another winter was setting in and we were 
once more beginning to get hordes of cases of frozen 
feet, we were ordered to move again, this time to an- 
other army. The day before we left. Colonel Morier 
visited the Section and, in the name of the Army, 
thanked the men in glowing terms, not only for the 
work which they had done, but for the way in which 
they had done it. He recalled the great days of the 
Second Battle of the Yser and the Dunkirk bombard- 
ments and what the Americans had done; how he had 
always felt sure that he could depend upon them, and 
how they had always been ready for any service how- 

129 



FRIENDS OF FRANCE 

ever arduous or dull or dangerous it might be. He 
expressed officially and personally his regret at our 
departure. 

We left on a day that was typical and reminiscent 
of hundreds of other days we had spent in Flanders. 
It was raining when our convoy began to stretch it- 
self out along the road and it drizzled all that day. * 

Joshua G. B. Campbell 



* This Section has since added several important chapters to its his- 
tory, having served successively on the Aisne, on the Somme, at Verdun, 
and in the Argonne. {November, 1916.) 




IX 

THE BEGINNINGS OF A NEW SECTION 

The night before we were to leave we gave a dinner to 
the officers of the Ambulance. There were not many 
speeches, but we were reminded that we were in 
charge of one of the best-equipped Sections which 
had as yet taken the field, and that we were going to 
the front in an auxiliary capacity to take the place 
of Frenchmen needed for the sterner work of the 
trenches. We might be sent immediately to the front 
or kept for a while in the rear; but in any event 
there were sick and wounded to be carried and our job 
was to help by obeying orders. 

Early the next morning we ran through the Bois- 
de-Boulogne and over an historic route to Versailles, 
where, at the headquarters of the Army Automo- 
bile Service, our cars were numbered with a military 
serial and the driver of each was given a Livret Matri- 
cule, which is an open sesame to every motor park 
in France. Those details were completed about ten 
o'clock, and we felt at last as if we were French sol- 
diers driving French automobiles on the way to our 
place at the front. 

About thirty kilometres outside of Paris the staff 
car and the camionnette with the cook on board dashed 
by us, and upon our arrival at a quaint little village 
we found a cafe requisitioned for our use and its 

131 



FRIENDS OF FRANCE 

stock of meat, bread, and red wine in profusion at our 
disposal. In the evening we reached the town of 
Esternay and there again found all prepared for our 
reception. Rooms were requisitioned and the good 
people took us in with open arms and the warmest of 
hospitality, but one or two of us spread our blankets 
over the stretchers in the back of our cars, because 
there were not enough rooms and beds for all. 

The next morning was much colder; there was some 
snow and later a heavy fog. Our convoi got under way 
shortly after breakfast and ran in record-breaking 
time, for we wanted to finish our trip that evening. 
We stopped for lunch and for an inspection which 
consumed two hours, and starting about ten o'clock 
on the last stretch of our journey, drove all afternoon 
through sleet, cold, and snow. At seven o'clock that 
night we reached Vaucouleurs, had our supper, se- 
cured sleeping accommodations, and retired. Our 
running orders had been completed; we had reached 
our ordered destination in perfect form. 

Several days passed. We were inspected by gen- 
erals and other officers, all of whom seemed pleased 
with the completeness of our Section. Yet improve- 
ments they said were still possible and should be 
made while we were at the park. We were to take 
care of a service of evacuation of sick in that district 
and at the same time try out a "heating system." 
The Medical Inspector issued orders to equip two 
ambulances and report the results. Our Section Di- 
rector designed a system which uses the exhaust of 

132 




SOME OF THE MEMBERS OF SECTION IV 



THE BEGINNINGS OF A NEW SECTION 

the motor through two metal boxes, which arrange- 
ment warmed the air within the car and also forced 
the circulation of fresh air. This was installed in two 
cars and found to be very satisfactory, for in all kinds 
of weather and temperatures the temperature of 
the ambulances could be kept between 65° and 70° 
Fahrenheit. 

We were at this place in all six weeks, including 
Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year's. Our 
work consisted of evacuating malades, and at first it 
offered a fine opportunity of teaching the "green 
ones" how to care for their cars. But we were all 
soon put on our mettle. 

The outlying country was full of lowlands and 
streams which in many places during the hard rains 
covered the roads to such a depth that the usual type 
of French cars could not operate. Our car suspension 
was high, and we were able to perform a service the 
other cars had not been able to do. We established, 
too, a standard for prompt service, and during the 
weeks we were there it never became necessary that 
we delay a call for service on account of "high water." 
We left this district for other work with a record of 
never having missed a call, and the promptness of 
service, day or night, was often a matter of comment 
by the French officials connected with this work. 
During the high water, certain posts accustomed to 
telephone for an ambulance would ask for an Amer- 
ican Ambulance Boat, and the story was soon about 
that we had water lines painted on the cars as gauges 

133 



FRIENDS OF FRANCE 

for depths through which we could pass. I was once 
in the middle of a swirling rapid with the nearest 
"land" one hundred yards away. But I had to get 
through, because I knew I had a pneumonia patient 
with a high fever. I opened the throttle and charged. 
When I got to the other side I was only hitting on 
two cylinders, but as mine was the only car that day 
to get through at all I boasted long afterwards of my 
ambulance's fording ability. 

We were always looking forward to being moved 
and attached to some Division within the First Army, 
and, as promised, the order came. Our service in this 
district was completed, and on the morning of Janu- 
ary 5 our convoi passed on its way to a new location. 
Our work here included posies de secours that were 
intermittently under fire, and several of the places 
could only be reached at night, being in daylight 
within plain view of the German gunners. 

Here again we remained only a short time. With- 
out any warning we received an order one evening to 
proceed the next day to Toul. This we knew meant 
7 A.M., for the French military day begins early, and 
so all night we were busy filling our gasoline tanks, 
cleaning spark-plugs, and getting a dismantled car 
in shape to "roll." 

The trip to Toul was without incident, and when 
we drew up at the caserne, which proved to be our fu- 
ture home, we reported as ready for immediate work. 
The next day five cars were sent to a secondary posts 
de secours about ten kilometres from the lines and two 

134 




APPROACHING THE HIGH-WATER MARK 




POILTJS" AND AMERICANS SHARING THEIR LUNCH 



THE BEGINNINGS OF A NEW SECTION 

cars farther forward to a first-line poste de secours. 
The rest of the ambulances formed a reserve at our 
base to relieve daily those cars and take care of such 
emergency calls as might come in day or night. Then 
as soon as we proved our worth, we were given other 
similar points on the lines, and gradually took over 
the work of the French Section working with the next 
Army Division. 

To-day we have our full measure of shell adven- 
tures, night driving, and long hours at the wheel. 
But these are, of course, only the usual incidents of 
life at the front. We, too, the whole Section feels, will 
have our Second Battle of the Yser, or our attack on 
Hartmannsweilerkopf , and we are as eager as any sol- 
dier to prove what our men and cars can do in the face 
of such emergencies.^ 

George Rockwell 

* Shortly after this was written, the Section was sent to the Verdun 
sector, where for five months it has worked in the vicinity of Mort 
Homme and Hill 304. During this period one of its members, Edward 
J. Kelley, was killed, and another member, Roswell Sanders, was gravely 
wounded. {November, 1916. )\ 




X 

UN BLESSIS A MONTAUVILLE 

'* Un hlesse a Montauville — urgent /" 

Calls the sallow-faced telephoniste. 
The night is as black as hell's black pit, 
There 's snow on the wind in the East. 

There 's snow on the wind, there 's rain on the wind. 
The cold's like a rat at your bones; 

You crank your car till your soul caves in, 
But the engine only moans. 

The night is as black as hell's black pit; 

You feel your crawling way 
Along the shell-gutted, gun-gashed road — 

How — only God can say. 

The 120's and 75's 

Are bellowing on the hill; 
They 're playing at bowls with big trench-mines 

Down at the Devil's mill. 

Christ! Do you hear that shrapnel tune 
Twang through the frightened air? 

The Boches are shelling on Montauville — 
They're waiting for you up there! 

' Un hlessS — urgent ? Hold your lantern up 

While I turn the damned machine! 
Easy, just lift him easy now! 

Why, the fellow's face is green!" 
136 



UN BLESSE A MONTAUVILLE 

"Ow2, ga ne dure pas longtemps, tu sais" 
"Here, cover him up — he's cold! 
Shove the stretcher — it 's stuck! That 's it — he 'j 
in!' 
Poor chap, not twenty years old. 

'^Bon-soir, messieurs — a tout a Vheurel" 
And you feel for the hell-struck road. 
It's ten miles x)ff to the surgery. 

With Death and a boy for your load. 

Praise God for that rocket in the trench. 

Green on the ghastly sky — 
That camion was dead ahead! 

Let the ravitaillement by! 

*' Courage, mon brave ! We're almost there!'* 
God, how the fellow groans — 
And you'd give your heart to ease the jolt 
Of the ambulance over the stones. 

Go on, go on, through the dreadful night — 

How — only God He knows! 
But now he's still! Aye, it's terribly still 

On the way a dead man goes. 

"Wake up, you swine asleep! Come out! 
TJn blessS — urgent — damned bad ! " 
A lamp streams in on the blood-stained white 
And the mud-stained blue of the lad. 

"/Z est mort, m^sieuT' "So the poor chap's dead?" 
Just there, then, on the road 
137 



FRIENDS OF FRANCE 

You were driving a hearse in the hell-black night. 
With Death and a boy for your load. 

O dump him down in that yawning shed, 

A man at his head and feet; 
Take off his ticket, his clothes, his kit. 

And give him his winding-sheet. 

It's just another poilu that's dead; 

You've hauled them every day 
Till your soul has ceased to wonder and weep 

At war's wild, wanton play. 

He died in the winter dark, alone. 

In a stinking ambulance. 
With God knows what upon his lips — 

But on his heart was France! 

Emery Pottle 




XI 

CHRISTMAS EVE, 1915 

In one of the most beautiful countries in the world, 
the Alsatian Valley of the Thur runs to where the 
Vosges abruptly end in the great flat plain of the 
Rhine. In turn a small valley descends into that of 
the Thur. At the head of this valley lies the small 
village of MoUau where is billeted the Section Sani- 
taire Americaine N^ 3. It has been through months 
of laborious, patient, never-ceasing trips from the 
valley to the mountain-tops and back, up the broad- 
ened mule-paths, rutted and worn by a thousand 
wheels and the hoofs of mules, horses, and oxen, by 
hobnailed boots and by the cars of the American 
Ambulance (for no other Section is equipped with 
cars and men for such service), up from the small 
Alsatian towns, leaving the main valley road to grind 
through a few fields of ever-increasing grade on into 
the forest, sometimes pushed, sometimes pulled, al- 
ways blocked on the steepest slopes by huge army 
wagons deserted where they stuck, rasping cart- 
loads of trench torpedoes on one side, crumbling the 
edge of the ravine on the other, — day and night — 
night and day — in snow and rain — and, far worse, 
fog — months of foul and days of fair, — up with the 
interminable caravans of ravitaillement, supplies with 

139 



FRIENDS OF FRANCE 

which to sustain or blast the human body (we go 
down with the human body once blasted), up past 
small armies of Alsatian peasants of three generations 
(rather two — octogenarians and children), forever 
repairing, forever fighting the wear and tear of all that 
pajsses, — up at last to the little log huts and rudely 
made posies de secours at the mouth of the trench 
"bowels," — a silent little world of tethered mules, 
shrouded carts and hooded figures, lightless by night, 
under the great pines where is a crude garage usually 
filled with grenades into which one may back at one's 
own discretion. 

Day after day, night after night, wounded or no 
wounded, the little ambulances plied with their soli- 
tary drivers. Few men in ordinary autos or in ordi- 
nary senses travel such roads by choice, but all that 
is impossible is explained by a simple C'est la guerre. 
Why else blindly force and scrape one's way past a 
creaking truck of shells testing twenty horses, two 
abreast, steaming in their own cloud of sweaty vapor, 
thick as a Fundy fog? Taking perforce the outside, 
the ravine side, the ambulance passes. More horses 
and wagons ahead in the dark, another blinding mo- 
ment or two, harnesses clash and rattle, side bolts and 
lanterns are wiped from the car. It passes again; 
C'est la guerre. Why else descend endless slopes with 
every brake afire, with three or four human bodies as 
they should not be, for cargo, where a broken drive- 
shaft leaves but one instantaneous twist of the wheel 
for salvation, a thrust straight into the bank, smash- 

140 



CHRISTMAS EVE, 1915 

ing the car, but saving its precious load? C'est la 
guerre. 

The men in time grow tired as do the machines. A 
week before Christmas they rested quietly in their 
villages — a week of sun and splendid moon, spent 
tuning up their motors and gears and jogging about 
afoot after all their "rolling." A lull in the fighting, 
and after three weeks of solid rain, nature smiles. 
The Section had been ordered to leave shortly, and it 
was only held for a long-expected attack which would 
bring them all together for once on the mountains in 
a last great effort with the Chasseurs Alpins and the 
mountains they both loved. 

On December 21st the mountain spoke and all the 
cars rolled upwards to the poste of Hartmannsweiler- 
kopf , — taken and retaken a score of times, — a bare, 
brown, blunt, shell-ploughed top where before the 
forest stood, up elbowing, buffeting, and tacking their 
way through battalions of men and beasts, up by one 
pass and down by another unmountable (for there is 
no going back against the tide of what was battle- 
bound). From one mountain slope to another roared 
all the lungs of war. For five days and five nights — 
scraps of days, the shortest of the year, nights inter- 
minable — the air was shredded with shrieking shells 
— intermittent lulls for slaughter in attack after the 
bombardment, then again the roar of the counter- 
attack. 

All this time, as in all the past months, Richard Nel- 
ville Hall calmly drove his car up the winding, shell- 

141 



FRIENDS OF FRANCE 

swept artery of the mountain of war, — past crazed 
mules, broken-down artillery carts, swearing drivers, 
stricken horses, wounded stragglers still able to hob- 
ble, — past long convoys of Boche prisoners, silent, 
descending in twos, guarded by a handful of men, — 
past all the personnel of war, great and small (for 
there is but one road, one road on which to travel, one 
road for the enemy to shell), — past ahris, bomb- 
proofs, subterranean huts, to arrive at the pastes de 
secours, where silent men moved mysteriously in the 
mist under the great trees, where the cars were 
loaded with an ever-ready supply of still more quiet 
figures (though some made sounds), mere bundles in 
blankets. Hall saw to it that those quiet bundles were 
carefully and rapidly installed, — right side up, for 
instance, — for it is dark and the brancardiers are dull 
folks, deadened by the dead they carry; then rolled 
down into the valley below, where little towns bear 
stohdly their daily burden of shells wantonly thrown 
from somewhere in Bocheland over the moimtain to 
somewhere in France — the bleeding bodies in the 
car a mere corpuscle in the full crimson stream, the 
ever-rolling tide from the trenches to the hospital, of 
the blood of life and the blood of death. Once there, 
his wounded unloaded, Dick Hall filled his gasoline 
tank and calmly rolled again on his way. Two of his 
comrades had been wounded the day before, but Dick 
Hall never faltered. He slept where and when he 
could, in his car, at the poste, on the floor of our tem- 
porary kitchen at Moosch — dry blankets — wet 

142 



CHRISTMAS EVE, 1915 

blankets — blankets of mud — blankets of blood; 
contagion was pedantry — microbes a myth. 

At midnight Christmas Eve, he left the valley to 
get his load of wounded for the last time. Alone, 
ahead of him, two hours of lonely driving up the moun- 
tain. Perhaps he was thinking of other Christmas 
Eves, perhaps of his distant home, and of those who 
were thinking of him. 

Matter, the next American to pass, found him by 
the roadside halfway up the mountain. His face was 
calm and his hands still in position to grasp the wheel. 
Matter, and Jennings, who came a little later, bore 
him tenderly back in Matter's car to Moosch, where 
his brother, Louis Hall, learned what had happened. 

A shell had struck his car and killed him instantly, 
painlessly. A chance shell in a thousand had struck 
him at his post, in the morning of his youth. 

Up on the mountain fog was hanging over Hart- 
mann's Christmas morning, as if Heaven wished 
certain things obscured. The trees were sodden with 
dripping rain. Weather, sight, sound, and smell did 
their all to sicken mankind, when news was brought 
to us that Dick Hall ha,d fallen on the Field of Honor. 
No man said, "Merry Christmas," that day. No 
man could have mouthed it. With the fog forever 
closing in, with the mpuntain shaken by a double bom- 
bardment as never before, we sat all day in the little 
log hut by the stove, thinking first of Dick Hall, then 

143 



FRIENDS OF FRANCE 

of Louis Hall, his brother, down in the valley. . . . 
Gentlemen at home, you who tremble with concern 
at overrun putts, who bristle at your partner's play 
at auction, who grow hoarse at football games, know 
that among you was one who played for greater goals 
— the lives of other men. There in the small hours of 
Christmas morning, where mountain fought moun- 
tain, on that hard-bitten pass under the pines of the 
Vosgian steeps, there fell a very modest and valiant 
gentleman. 

Dick Hall, we who knew you, worked with you, 
played with you, ate with you, slept with you, we who 
took pleasure in your company, in your modesty, in 
your gentle manners, in your devotion and in your 
youth — we still pass that spot, and we salute. Our 
breath comes quicker, our eyes grow dimmer, we grip 
the wheel a little tighter — we pass — better and 
stronger men. 

Richard Hall was buried with honors of war in the 
Valley of Saint-Amarin, in the part of Alsace which 
once more belongs to France. His grave, in a crowded 
military cemetery, is next that of a French officer who 
fell the same morning. It bears the brief inscription, 
"Richard Hall, an American who died for France." 
Simple mountain people in the only part of Germany 
where foreign soldiers are to-day brought to the grave 
many wreaths of native flowers and Christmas greens. 
The funeral service was held in a little Protestant 

144 




RICHARD HALL 



CHRISTMAS EVE, 1915 

chapel, five miles down the valley. At the conclusion 
of the service HalFs citation was read and the Cross 
of War pinned on the coffin. On the way to the ceme- 
tery sixteen soldiers, belonging to a battalion on leave 
from the trenches, marched in file on each side with 
arms reversed. The medecin chef spoke as follows: — 

Messieurs — Camarades — 

C'est un supreme hommage de reconnaissance et 
d' affection que nous rendons, devant cette fosse 
fraichement creusee, a ce jeune homme — je dirais 
volontiers — cet enfant — tombe hier pour la France 
sur les pentes de THartmannsweilerkopf. . . . Ai-je 
besoin de vous rappeler la douloureuse emotion que 
nous avons tons ressentis en apprenant hier matin 
que le conducteur Richard Hall, de la Section Sani- 
taire Americaine N° 3, venait d'etre mortellement 
frappe par un eclat d'obus, pres du poste de secours 
de Thomannsplats ou il montait chercher des blesses? 

A I'Ambulance 3/58, ou nous eprouvons pour nos 
camarades americains une sincere amitie basee sur des 
mois de vie commune pendant laquelle il nous fut 
permis d'apprecier leur endurance, leur courage, et 
leur devouement, le conducteur Richard Hall etait 
estime entre tons pour sa modestie, sa douceur, sa 
complaisance. 

A peine sorti de Tuniversite de Dartmouth, dans 
la generosite de son coeur d'adolescent, il apporta a 
la France le precieux concours de sa charite en venant 
relever, sur les champs de bataille d'Alsace, ceux 

145 



FRIENDS OF FRANCE 

de nos vaillants soldats blesses en combattant pour la 
patrie bien-aimee. 

II est mort en "Chevalier de la Bienfaisance" — 
en "Americain" — pour raccomplissement d'une 
ceuvre de bonte et de charite chretienne! 

Aux ^tres cliers qu'il a laisses dans sa patrie, au 
Michigan, k ses parents desoles, a son frere aine, qui, 
au milieu de nous, montre une si stoique douleur, nos 
hommages et Texpression de notre tristesse sont bien 
sinceres et bien vifs! 

Conducteur Richard Hall, vous allez reposer ici a 
Tombre du drapeau tricolore, aupres de tons ces 
vaillants dont vous etes Temule. . . . Vous faites a 
juste titrepartiedeleurbataillonsacre! . . . Seul,votre 
corps, glorieusement mutile, disparait — votre ^me 
est remonte trouver Dieu — votre souvenir, lui, reste 
dans nos coeurs, imperissable! . . . Les Frangais 
n'oublient pas! 

Conducteur Richard Hall — Adieu! ^ 



* [Translation] 

*' Messieurs — Comrades: — 

"We are here to offer our last, supreme homage of gratitude and affec- 
tion, beside this freshly dug grave, to this young man — I might well 
say, this boy — who fell yesterday, for France, on the slopes of Hart- 
mannsweilerkopf . Do I need to recall the painful emotion that we all 
felt when we learned yesterday morning that Driver Richard Hall, of the 
American Sanitary Section N° 3, had been mortally wounded by the 
blunting of a shell, near the dressing-station at Thomannsplats, where he 
had gone to take up the wounded? 

In Ambulance 3/58, where we cherish for our American comrades a 
sincere affection based upon months of life in common, during which we 
have had f uU opportunity to estimate truly their endurance, their cour- 
age, and their devotion. Driver Richard Hall was regarded with peculiar 
esteem for his modesty, his sweet disposition, his obligingness. 

146 



CHRISTMAS EVE, 1915 

"Barely graduated from Dartmouth College, in the noble enthusiams 
of his youth he brought to France the invaluable cooperation of his 
charitable heart — coming hither to gather up on the battlefields of 
Alsace those of our gallant troops who were wounded fighting for their 
beloved country. 

" He died like a ' Chevalier de la Bienf aisance/ like an American, while 
engaged in a work of kindness and Christian charity! 

"To the dear ones whom he has left in his own land, in Michigan, to 
his grief-stricken parents, to his older brother who displays here among 
us such stoicism in his grief, our respect and our expressions of sorrow 
are most sincere and heartfelt. 

"Driver Richard Hall, you are to be laid to rest here, in the shadow of 
the tri-colored flag, beside all these brave fellows, whose gallantry you 
have emulated. You are justly entitled to make one of their consecrated 
battalion! Your body alone, gloriously mutilated, disappears; your soul 
has ascended to God; your memory remains in our hearts — imperish- 
able! — Frenchmen do not forget! 

"Driver Richard Hall — farewell!" 





xn 

THE INSPECTOR'S LETTER BOX 

This chapter is made up of excerpts from letters and 
diaries written by men in the Field Service, which, in 
one way or another, have found their way into Mr. 
Andrew's office. They are presented as a series of 
snapshot views taken by men in the course of daily 
work and no attempt has been made to weave them 
into a connected narrative. 




Our Ambulances 

A word about the structure of the small motor am- 
bulances as perfected by our experience during the 
war. Upon the chassis as received from the States is 
built a strong, light ambulance body of tough wood 
and canvas. The design provides for the utmost econ- 

148 



THE INSPECTOR'S LETTER BOX 

omy of space, and although the cubical <iontents are 
perhaps not more than half of that of the body of an 
ordinary ambulance of the kind constructed to carry 
four stretchers, the typical cars of the American Am- 
bulance can carry three. Two stretchers stand on the 
floor of the car and the third is supported under the 
roof by a simple and ingenious contrivance designed 
by one of the Section leaders to meet the special needs 
of the service. When not in use this mechanism folds 
up and rests flat against the sides of the ambulance, 
and with a couple of seats added, which ^an be fixed 
in position immediately, the car is transformed in a 
moment into an ambulance for four sitting cases. In 
addition to these room has been found, by means of 
specially constructed seats placed by the driver, for 
three more sitters, making a total of three lying and 
three sitting cases for each trip. In emergency as 
many as ten wounded men have been carried at one 
time, the inside of the car being crowded to its capac- 
ity, and the foot-plates and mud-guards serving as 
extra seats. 

An ambulance loaded like this is an interesting sight. 
The driver seems almost buried under his freight; he 
has not an inch of room more than is necessary for the 
control of his car. Covered with mud, blood-stained, 
with startlingly white bandages against their tanned 
skin; with puttees loose and torn, heavy boots, shape- 
less uniforms gray from exposure, and with patient, 
suffering faces still bearing the shock and horror of 
bombardment, the wounded roll slowly from the posies 

149 



FRIENDS OF FRANCE 

de secours to shelter and care, shivering, maybe, in the 
cold and grayness of dawn, but always with a hand 
to help each other and a word of thanks to the driver. 

A. P. A. 




How the Cars reach Paris 

Towards the end of February three of us went down 
to Havre to unpack eight cars which had just arrived. 
In three days the work was done, and as I was one of 
the first drivers to get to work, I was able to choose 
the car I liked best for the trip down to Paris. Un- 
fortunately it rained steadily duri^ig our passage 
through Normandy, so that we could not appreciate 
to the full one of the most beautiful countries in the 
world. After spending the night in Rouen, we set out 
for Paris, which was reached in good time, my only 
mishap being a puncture. 

150 



THE INSPECTOR'S LETTER BOX 

In Paris I drove the little car, with its soap-box 
body, as a light delivery wagon to do odd jobs in 
town, to give driving lessons, to carry fellows going to 
the front as far as the station, and other similar tasks, 
for some two weeks, when it went to the carriage- 
builders. As it happened, this particular carrosder, 
who had not been employed by the American Ambu- 
lance before, turned out the best and strongest bodies 
for the five cars I was interested in, among which was 
the one presented by St. Paul's School. 

Heney M. Suckley 




En route for the Front 

It appeals to the French people that so many Amer- 
icans are standing by them in their tragic hours. The 
little that we in America have actually done seems 
small, indeed, compared with the size of the situation, 

151 



FRIENDS OF FRANCE 

but its main object and its main effect are to show to 
the people of France that we believe in them and in 
the justice of their cause; that we still remember what 
they did for us in the darkest hour of our own his- 
tory; and that, as members of a great sister Repub- 
lic, our hearts and hopes are with them in this most 
unnecessary war. All day long, wherever we have 
stopped, people have come out and offered us flow- 
ers and fruit and food and friendly greetings, very 
much as our ancestors of a hundred and forty years 
ago must have offered them to the compatriots of 
Lafayette. 

Our trip has been full of touching and appealing 
impressions crowding one upon the other. As our 
picturesque convoy ran through the little villages, 
and we stopped here and there for some one to clean 
a spark-plug or mend a tire, children crowded around 
us, and asked questions about America, and we often 
got them to sing the "Marseillaise" or some of the 
topical songs of the moment about " Guillaume" and 
the "Boches" (people in France seldom speak of the 
Germans as such, they call them simply "Boches" 
which seems to mean "brutal, stupid people"). After 
a long, hard drive we reached Saint-Omer about 
eleven. The hotels were full, the restaurants were 
closed, and no provision had been made either for our 
food or our lodging. So we wheeled into the public 
square and slept on the stretchers in our ambulances 
— without other food than the chocolate and crack- 
ers we had in our pockets. All day yesterday, as we 

152 




H 


^ 


O 


cS 


^ 


cq 


m 




1-1 
< 


S 


?5 








Ph 


pi 


Cii 


2 


H 


t3 


'A 


<< 


O 




p^ 


S 


Q 




M 




Ph 




C/J 




1^ 




I"! 




?^ 




< 





THE INSPECTOR'S LETTER BOX 

ran past the quaint towns and villages, we could hear 
the great cannon on the front booming like distant 
thunder. It is hard to realize that for five hundred 
and more miles these cannon are booming day after 
day all day long, and often throughout the night. 

A. P. A. 




C~. Hvi^ 



First Impressions 

After a few more short delays (inseparable from 
times and states of war), the Section at last found 
itself within a mile of one of the most stubbornly con- 
tested points of the line. In a little town not far from 
the front they came in swift progression into hard 
work, bombardment, and appreciation by the army. 

Pont-a-Mousson is in a district in which low hills, 
many of them covered with thick woods, lie along the 
valley of the Moselle. Down towards the river, on 

153 



FRIENDS OF FRANCE 

both banks and at right angles to it, stretch the inter- 
minable lines of trenches, east and west; batteries of 
guns crown the adjacent hills for two or three miles 
back from the trenches, alike in the enemy's country 
and that of the French; and intermittently, day and 
night, these batteries defy and seek to destroy each 
other, the valleys echoing with the roar of their guns 
and the sharp scream of shells high overhead. Back 
of the trenches for several miles every village is full 
of soldiers resting or in reserve; the roads are filled 
with marching troops, horses, mule trains, baggage 
wagons, guns and ammunition carts. At every cross- 
road stand sentries with bayonets. After sunset the 
whole country is dark, no lights being permitted, but 
the roads are more crowded than by day, as it is under 
cover of night that troops and guns are generally 
moved. The whole country near to the active lines is 
one great theatre of war. Everywhere are sights and 
sounds forbidding a moment's forgetfulness of the 
fact. Yet — and it is one of the most curious and 
touching things one sees — the peasant life goes on 
but little changed. Old men dig in their gardens, 
women gather and sell their vegetables, girls stand 
in the evenings at their cottage doors, children run 
about and play in the streets. Often, not more than 
two miles away, a desperate attack may be in pro- 
gress. Between the concussions of the cannon throw- 
ing their missiles from the hills over the village can be 
heard the rattle of rifle-fire and the dull pop-pop-pop 
of the mitrailleuses. In an hour or two, scores, maybe 

154 



THE INSPECTOR'S LETTER BOX 

hundreds, of wounded men, or lines of prisoners, will 
file through the village, and at any moment shells 
may burst over the street, killing soldiers or women 
indifferently, but the old man still digs in his garden, 
the girl still gossips at the door. 

J. Halcott Glover 



The Daily Programme 
About 6 o'clock those sleeping at the caserne get up 
and dress, rolling up their blanket-rolls, and coming 
into the dining-room for coffee at about 6.30. To- 
wards 7, the men who have slept at the different 
"postes arrive. After coffee, ambulances which are to 
be stationed elsewhere for service as required, leave 
the caserne. Men on day duty see to their cars and 
await calls by telephone which are received by our 
French assistant. Particulars are entered by him 
upon a printed slip and given to the driver next in 
turn to go out. On the driver's return, this slip is 
handed in with the number of wounded carried and 
the figures are entered in our record book. At 11 
o'clock everybody comes in for dejeuner. The dining- 
room — a large apartment capable of holding three 
times our number — has been pleasantly decorated 
with festoons and flags by our orderly, Mignot. The 
afternoon is taken up in evacuating wounded to 
Belleville, bringing in fresh wounded as required, or, 
in slack moments, in reading, writing, or sleeping. 
We have a little garden and easy-chairs, and, consid- 

155 



FRIENDS OF FRANCE 

ering the state of war and the very close proximity of 
the enemy, it is remarkable that we should have so 
many luxuries. At 6 we have dinner, after which men 
who are to sleep at Dieulouard go off for the night. 
By 9 the rest of us have generally turned in. One car 
every night waits at Montauville, and, should there 
be too many wounded for one car to convey, as many 
more are as required are summoned by telephone. 
During severe attacks, all cars may be called for: in 
which case one man is appointed to take charge of ar- 
rivals and despatches at Montauville, leaving drivers 
free to come and go with as little delay as possible. 

J. H. G. 



Handling the Wounded 

The wounded are brought by the army brancardiers 
direct from the trenches to one or other of the pastes 
de secours established in the villages behind the 
trenches and are carried on stretchers slung between 
two wheels. Two men convey them. They usually 
come two or three kilometres over rough tracks or 
open fields from the lines where they fell. The work 
of the brancardiers is exhausting and dangerous, and 
enough cannot be said in their praise. This war being 
one of barbarous weapons, the condition of the 
wounded is often terrible. Shells, shrapnel, hand- 
grenades, and mines account for most of the injuries, 
and these are seldom clean wounds and often very 
serious. The wounded arrive, after rough dressing on 

156 



THE INSPECTOR'S LETTER BOX 

the field, sometimes so covered with blood and dirt 
as to be unrecognizable. Often they are unconscious, 
and not unfrequently they die before adequate help 
can be got. One hears few utterances of pain, and 
no complaints. Stretchers are carried into the poste 
de secourSy where a doctor examines the wound and 
re-dresses it if necessary; the blesse is then brought out 
and given to us. Our cars can carry three stretcher 
cases or five or six sitting; only the most seriously 
injured can be allowed the luxury of lying down. 
Our business then is to convey them gently, and as 
fast as is consistent with gentleness, to hospitals. 
Here the wounded receive further treatment; or, if 
their case is hopeless, are allowed peacefully to die. 
The following day, or perhaps several days after- 
wards, if the wounded man is not fit to travel, he 
comes into our hands again, to be carried to the 
trains sanitaires for evacuation to one of the many 
hospitals throughout France. 

J. H. G. 



The Wounded 

One would like to say a little about the wounded 
men, of whom we have, by this time, seen some thou- 
sands. But it is difficult to separate one's impressions : 
the wounded come so fast and in such numbers, and 
one is so closely concerned with the mechanical part 
of their transportation, that very soon one ceases to 
have many human emotions concerning them. And 

157 



FRIENDS OF FRANCE 

there is a pitiful sameness in their appearance. They 
are divided, of course, into the two main classes of 
"sitting" and *' lying." Many of the former have 
come down on foot from the trenches; one sees them 
arrive in the street at Montauville looking round — 
perhaps a little lost — for the poste de secours ap- 
pointed for this particular regiment or company. 
Sometimes they help one another; often they walk 
with an arm thrown round some friendly shoulder. 
I have seen men come in, where I have stood waiting 
in the poste de secours, and throw themselves down ex- 
hausted, with blood trickling from their loose bandages 
into the straw. They have all the mud and sunburn 
of their trench life upon them — a bundle of heavy, 
shapeless clothes — always the faded blue of their 
current uniform — and a pair of hobnailed boots, very 
expressive of fatigue. They smell of sweat, camp-fire 
smoke, leather, and tobacco — all the same, whether 
the man be a peasant or a professor of mathematics. 
Sometimes, perhaps from loss of blood, or nervous 
shock, their teeth chatter. They are all very subdued 
in manner. One is struck by their apparent freedom 
from pain. With the severely wounded, brought in 
on stretchers, it is occasionally otherwise. If it is 
difficult to differentiate between man and man among 
the "sitting" cases, it is still more so with the "ly- 
ing." Here there is a blood-stained shape under a 
coat or a blanket, a glimpse of waxy skin, a mass of 
bandage. When the uniform is gray, men say 
^'Boche'* and draw round to look. Then one sees the 

158 




EVACUATING A HOSPITAL 




TRANSFERRING THE WOUNDED TO THE TRAIN 



THE INSPECTOR'S LETTER BOX 

closely cropped bullet head of the German. One 
might describe the ghastliness of wounds, but enough 
has been said. At first, they cause a shudder, and I 
have had gusts of anger at the monstrous folly in man 
that results in such senseless suffering, but very 
soon the fatalism which is a prevailing tone of men's 
thoughts in this war dulls one's perceptions. It is just 
another blessS — the word '' gravement," spoken by 
the infirmier, as they bring him out to the ambu- 
lance, carries only the idea of a little extra care in 
driving. The last we see of them is at the hospital. 
At night we have to wake up the men on duty there. 
The stretcher is brought into the dimly lighted, close- 
smelling room where the wounded are received, and 
laid down on the floor. In the hopeless cases there 
follows the last phase. The man is carried out and 
lies, with others like himself, apart from human inter- 
est till death claims him. Then a plain, unpainted 
coflBn, the priest, a little procession, a few curious 
eyes, the salute, and the end. His grave, marked by a 
small wooden cross on which his name and grade are 
written, lies unnoticed, the type of thousands, by the 
roadside or away among the fields. Everywhere in 
the war zone one passes these graves. A great belt 
of them runs from Switzerland to the sea across 
France and Belgium. There are few people living in 
Europe who have not known one or more of the men 
who lie within it. 

J. R G. 



159 



FRIENDS OF FRANCE 

Night Duty 

A few days after our arrival at the front I had my 
first experience of a night call. It was very dark and 
we had to feel our way forward. Nothing gives one a 
stronger sense of the nearness of war than such a trip. 
The dark houses, deserted streets, the dim shape of 
the sentry at the end of the town, the night scents of 
the fields as one passes slowly along them, are things 
not to be forgotten. We strained our eyes in the dark- 
ness to avoid other vehicles, all, like our own, going 
without lights. In those days, not being so well known 
as we are now, the sentries challenged us : their "Halte- 
Id" in the darkness brought us frequently to an 
abrupt stop. As we drew near the trenches we heard 
the guns very clearly, and saw over the crest of a hill 
the illuminating rockets with which both armies 
throw a glare over their attacks. They throw a green- 
ish and ghastly light over the country, hanging in the 
air a few seconds before falling. At our destination 
everything was dark. We left the cars in the road and 
went up under the trees to the poste de secours. Here 
we found some men sleeping on straw, but had to 
wait close upon two hours before our wounded were 
ready. From time to time a battery of 75's startled us 
in the woods near by. At last in a drizzling rain we 
came back to quarters, passing several small bodies 
of soldiers marching silently up to the trenches. 
Another night, remaining near the trenches till half- 
past four in the morning, I saw the wounded brought 
in, in the gray of dawn, from a series of attacks and 

160 



THE INSPECTOR'S LETTER BOX 

counter-attacks. I had been waiting in one of the 
posies de secours, where, by candlelight, particulars 
were being written down of the various wounded. 
The surgeon, in a long white linen coat, in many 
places stained with blood, was busy with his scissors. 
Many wounded lay on straw round the room, and at 
rare intervals one heard a groan. The air was warm 
and heavy, full of the smell of wounds and iodine. A 
window was opened, the light of morning making the 
candles dim and smoky, and it was pleasant to go out 
into the cool air. The wounded being brought in 
looked cold and wretched. There were many who had 
been hit in the face or head — more than one was 
blind. 

I overheard a few words spoken between a brau' 
cardier and a wounded man who — rare sign of suffer- 
ing — was weeping. "You will be safe now — you 
are going to your wife," spoken in tones of sympathy 
for comfort, and the reply : "No, no, I am dying. "... 
Later, as the sun was rising and lifting the blue mist 
in the hollows of the hill, I watched some shells burst- 
ing in a field; a brown splash of earth, a ball of smoke 
which drifted slowly away. 

J. H. G. 



Fitting into the Life 

During the months of May, June, and July the 
Section, increased in number to twenty cars, broke all 
records of the American Ambulaacse. The work was 

161 



FRIENDS OF FRANCE 

so organized and men brought such devotion to their 
duties that it may be said that, of all the wounded 
brought down from daily and nightly fighting, not one 
was kept waiting so much as ten minutes for an am- 
bulance to take him to the hospital. 

Where, before the coming of the American cars, 
ambulances came up to the posies de secours only 
when called, and at night came after a delay occa- 
sioned by waking a driver sleeping some miles away, 
who thereupon drove his car to the place where he was 
needed, the American Section established a service on 
the spot, so that the waiting was done by the driver 
of the ambulance and not by the wounded. The 
effect of this service was immediate in winning confi- 
dence and liking, of which the members of the Sec- 
tion were justly proud. Their swift, light, easy-run- 
ning cars were a great improvement on the old and 
clumsy ambulances which had served before them. 
In the early days, when these old ambulances were 
working side by side with ours, wounded men being 
brought from the trenches would ask to be carried by 
the Americans. That the latter should have come so 
far to help them, should be so willing to lose sleep and 
food that they should be saved from pain, and should 
take the daily risks of the soldiers without necessity 
or recompense seemed to touch them greatly. It was 
not long before the words ^^ Ambulance AmSricaine^* 
would pass a man by any sentry post. The mot, or 
password, was never demanded. And in their times of 
leisure, when others were on duty, men could eat with 

162 



THE INSPECTOR'S LETTER BOX 

the soldiers in their popotes and become their friends. 
Many of them have become known and welcomed in 
places miles apart and have formed friendships which 
will last long after the war. 

J. H. G. 



Paysages de Guerre 

I went early one morning with one of our men, by 
invitation of an engineer whose acquaintance we had 
made, up to the part of the Bois-le-Pretre known as 
the Quart-en-Reserve. We started at three, march- 
ing up with a party going up to identify and bury the 
dead. The sites of all the trenches, fought over during 
the winter, were passed on the way, and we went 
through several encampments where soldiers were 
still sleeping, made of little log houses and dug-outs, 
such as the most primitive men lived in. It was a 
gray morning, with a nip in the air; the fresh scents of 
the earth and the young green were stained with the 
smoke of the wood fires and the mixed smells of a 
camp. After a spell of dry weather, the rough tracks 
we followed in our course through the wood were pas- 
sable enough; the deep ruts remaining and here and 
there a piece of soft ground gave us some idea of the 
mud through which the soldiers must have labored a 
few weeks before. And it is by such tracks that the 
wounded are brought down from the trenches ! Small 
wonder that when the stretcher is laid down its occu- 
pant is occasionally found to be dead. In about half 

163 



FRIENDS OF FRANCE 

an hour, nearing the top of the hill which the Bois-le- 
Pretre covers, we noticed a change both in the scene 
and in the air. The leafage was thinner, and there 
was a look, not very definable yet, of bhght. The 
path we were following sank deeper, and became a 
trench. For some hundreds of yards we wstlked in 
single file, seeing nothing but the narrow ditch wind- 
ing before us, and bushes and trees overhead. With 
every step our boots grew heavier with thick, sticky 
mud. And a faint perception of unpleasant smells 
which had been with us for some minutes became a 
thing which had to be fought against. Suddenly the 
walls of our trench ended, and in front of us was an 
amazing confusion of smashed trees, piles of earth 
and rock — as though some giant had passed that 
way, idly kicking up the ground for his amusement. 
We climbed out of the remains of our trench and 
looked round. One had read, in official reports of the 
war, of situations being "prepared" by artillery for 
attack. We saw before us what that preparation 
means. An enlarged photograph of the mountains on 
the moon gives some idea of the appearance of shell- 
holes. Little wonder that attacks are usually success- 
ful: the wonder is that any of the defenders are left 
alive. The difficulty is to hold the position when cap- 
tured, for the enemy can and does turn the tables. 
Here lies the whole of the slow torture of this war 
since the open fighting of last year — a war of ex- 
haustion which must already have cost, counting all 
sides, more than a million lives. The scene we looked 

164 



THE INSPECTOR'S LETTER BOX 

round upon might be fittingly described by the Bibli- 
cal words "abomination of desolation." Down in the 
woods we had come through, the trees were lovely 
with spring, and early wild flowers peeped prettily 
from between the rocks. Here it was still winter — a 
monstrous winter where the winds were gunpowder 
and the rain bullets. Trees were stripped of their 
smaller branches, of their bark: there was scarcely a 
leaf. And before us lay the dead. One of the horrible 
features in this war, in which there is no armistice, 
and the Red Cross is fired upon as a matter of course, 
is that it is often impossible to bury the dead till long 
after they are fallen. Only when a disputed piece of 
ground has at last been captured, and the enemy is 
driven well back, can burial take place. It is then that 
companies of men are sent out to pickup and identify. 
Of all the tasks forced upon men by war, this must be 
the worst. Enough to say that the bodies, which were 
laid in rows on the ground awaiting their turn to rest 
in the sweetness of the earth, were those of men who 
fought close on two months before. I pass over the 
details of this awful spectacle, leaving only two things : 
one of a ghastly incongruity, the other very moving. 
Out of a pocket of acadavre near to me I saw protrud- 
ing a common picture post-card, a thing of tinsel, 
strange possession for one passed into the ages. And 
between two bodies, a poppy startlingly vivid, mak- 
ing yet blacker the blackened shapes before us. . . . 

J, H. G. 



165 



FRIENDS OF FRANCE 

Soldier Life 

The main street of Montauville gives, perhaps, a 
characteristic glimpse of the life of the soldier on 
active service, who is not actually taking his turn in 
the trenches. He is under the shade of every wall; 
lounges in every doorway, stands in groups talking 
and laughing. His hands and face and neck are 
brown with exposure, his heavy boots, baggy trous- 
ers, and rough coat are stained with mud from bad 
weather. He laughs easily, is interested in any trifle, 
but underneath his surface gayety one may see the 
fatigue, the bored, the cynical indifference caused by 
a year of war, torn from every human relationship. 
What can be done to humanize his lot, he does with 
great skill. He can cook. Every cottage is full of sol- 
diers, and through open doors and windows one sees 
them eating and drinking, talking, playing cards, and 
sometimes, though rarely, they sing. In the evening 
they stand in the street in great numbers, and what 
with that, the difficulty of making ears accustomed to 
shrapnel take the sound of a motor horn seriously, 
and the trains of baggage wagons, ammunition for 
the guns, carts loaded with hay, etc., it is not too easy 
to thread one's way along. In our early days here 
curiosity as to who and what we were added to the 
difficulty, crowds surrounding us whenever we ap- 
peared, but by this time they are used to us, and not 
more than a dozen at once want to come and talk and 
shake hands. 

Perhaps the most interesting time to see Montau- 
166 



THE INSPECTOR'S LETTER BOX 

ville is when, after a successful attack by the French, 
the German prisoners are marched through the vil- 
lage. These, of course, without weapons and with 
hands hanging empty, walk with a dogged step be- 
tween guards with fixed bayonets, and as they pass, 
all crowd near to see them. Almost invariably the 
prisoners are bareheaded, having lost their caps — 
these being greatly valued souvenirs — on their way 
down from the trenches. They are housed tempo- 
rarily, for interrogation, in a schoolhouse in the main 
street, and when they are lined up in the school-yard 
there is a large crowd of French soldiers looking at 
them through the railings. Afterwards, they may be 
seen in villages behind the lines, fixing the roads, or 
doing similar work, in any old hats or caps charity 
may have bestowed upon them. 

J. H. G. 

July 22 at Pont-a-Mousson 

On Thursday, the 22d, we had a quiet day. In the 
evening several of us stepped across to the house 
where Smith and Ogilvie lived, to have a little bread 
and cheese before turning in. They had brought some 
fresh bread and butter from Toul, where duty had 
taken one of them, and these being our special luxu- 
ries, we were having a good time. Coiquaud was at 
the Bureau and two or three of our men were in or 
about the caserne. There were nine of us at the house 
at the fork of the road, which, no doubt, you remem- 
ber. Suddenly as we sat round the table there came 

167 



FRIENDS OF FRANCE 

the shriek of a shell and a tremendous explosion. The 
windows were blown in, the table thrown over, and 
all of us for a second were in a heap on the floor. The 
room was full of smoke and dust. None of us was hurt, 
happily, except Holt, who had a cut over the right 
eye, and who is now going about bandaged like one of 
our hlessis. We made a scramble for the cellar, the 
entrance to which is in a courtyard behind the house. 
As we were going down the stairs there followed an- 
other shell, and quickly on top of that, one or two 
more, all very near and pretty heavy. We stayed in 
the cellar perhaps ten minutes, and then, as I was 
anxious to know how things were at the caserne, I 
went up and, letting myself out into the street, ran 
for it, seeing vaguely as I passed fallen masonry and 
debris. The moon was shining through the dust and 
smoke which still hung a little thick. When I got to 
the caserne, the first thing I heard was Coiquaud cry- 
ing, "Oh! pauvre MignoW and I was told that the 
poor fellow had been standing, as was his wont, 
in the street, smoking a pipe before going to bed. He 
was chatting with two women. Lieutenant Kull- 
mann's orderly (I think they call him Grassetie) was 
not far away. The same shell which blew in our win- 
dows killed Mignot and the two women, and severely 
wounded Grassetie, who, however, was able to walk 
to the caserne to seek help. He was bleeding a good 
deal from several wounds; had one arm broken; his 
tongue was partially severed by a fragment which 
went through his cheek. He was taken immediately, 

168 



THE INSPECTOR'S LETTER BOX 

after a rough bandage or two had been put on, to try to 
check the loss of blood from his arm, where an artery 
appeared to be severed, to Ambulance N^ 3 at Pont- 
a-Mousson, whence he was afterwards taken to Dieu- 
louard and to Toul. He will probably recover.^ A boy, 
the son of our blanchisseuse, who was wounded at the 
same time, will, it is feared, die. As I was told that 
Mignot still lay in the street, I went out again, and 
saw him lying, being examined by gendarmes, on the 
pavement. He seems to have been killed instantane- 
ously. The contents of his pockets and his ring were 
taken from the body by Coiquaud and handed to me: 
they will, of course, be sent to his wife. He leaves two 
children. . . . Poor Coiquaud, who had shown great 
courage, became a little hysterical, and I took his 
arm and led him back to the caserne. When we all, 
except those who had left with Grassetie and some 
who had taken Mignot's body to Ambulance N° 3 
(there was such confusion at the time and I have 
been so constantly occupied since I don't yet know 
exactly who took that service), collected at the 
Bureau, our jubilation at our own escape — if the 
shell had travelled three yards farther it would have 
killed us all — was entirely silenced by the death of 
Mignot, for whom we all had a great affection. He 
served us well, cheerfully from the beginning, hon- 
estly and indefatigably. He was a good fellow, pos- 
sessing the fine qualities of the French workman to a 
very high degree. A renewed bombardment broke 

* He died soon after. 

169 



FRIENDS OF FRANCE 

out about this time, and we went down to the cellar. 
A shell striking the roof of one of our houses knocked 
in all our windows. I think we may all honestly con- 
fess that by this time our nerves were rather shaken. 
I was specially anxious about the cars in the barn, 
including the Pierce-Arrow and the Hotchkiss. One 
shell falling in the midst of them would have crippled 
half our cars — and if an attack on Bois-le-Pretre 
had followed . . . ! Our telephone wires were broken, 
so we were isolated. Lieutenant KuUmann and I de- 
cided, after consultation with all our men who were 
present, to report the situation to the mSdecin 
divisionnaire. So long as our men kept in the cellar 
they were safe enough. The Lieutenant and I left 
in the Peugeot brought by him to the Section, our 
leaving chancing to coincide with the arrival of four 
or five fresh shells. It was nervous work driving out; 
fragments of tiles and of shells — the latter still red- 
hot — fell about us but without hitting us. After 
seeing the mSdecin divisionnaire we returned to the 
caserne and spent the rest of the darkness in the cel- 
lar. From time to time more shells came, but soon 
after daybreak the firing ceased. 

In the morning we were very anxious for a while 
about Ogilvie. He had, unknown to the rest of us, 
gone to sleep at Schroder's and Buswell's room, and 
in the night two more shells struck his house, one of 
them penetrating right through to the cellar, making 
complete wreckage there. Some of us spent a little 
time looking in the debris for his body. 

170 



THE INSPECTOR'S LETTER BOX 

You would have been very moved if you could 
have been present at poor Mignot's funeral. We did 
what we could for him to show our respect, and I con- 
cluded I was only carrying out what would be the 
wishes of the American Ambulance by authorizing 
the expense of a better coffin and cross than he was 
entitled to in his grade in the army. 

At eight in the evening as many men as were off 
duty went to Pont-a-Mousson to attend the funeral. 
A short service was read in the chapel of the Nativite. 
There were four coffins : Mignot's, covered with a flag 
and with many flowers, and those of three civilians, 
killed on the same evening. It was a simple and im- 
pressive ceremony : the dimly lighted chapel, the dark 
forms of some twenty or thirty people of Pont-a- 
Mousson, our men together on one side, the sonorous 
voice of the priest, made a scene which none of us can 
forget. Colonel de Nansouty, Commandant d'Armes 
de Pont-a-Mousson, and Lieutenant Bayet were 
present; and when the little procession was formed 
and we followed the dead through the darkened 
streets and across the Place Duroc, they walked bare- 
headed with us. At the bridge the procession halted, 
and all but Lieutenant Bayet, Coiquaud, Schroder, 
and the writer turned back, it being desired by the 
authorities that only a few should go to the cemetery. 
We crossed the river and mounted the lower slope of 
the Mousson hill. Under the trees in the cemetery 
we saw as we passed the shattered tombs and broken 
graves left from the bombardments, which even here 

171 



FRIENDS OF FRANCE 

have made their terrible marks. In a far corner, well 
up on the hillside, the coffin of Mignot was laid down, 
to be interred in the early morning. We walked quietly 
back in company with Lieutenant Bayet, and were at 
last free to rest, after so many hours of unbroken 
strain. 

J. H. G. 




Incidents of a Driver* s Life 

On the 3d of May N° 6 went back on me for the 
first time. I was returning from Toul when the car 
broke down in half a dozen different places at once. I 
could not fix it, but would have reached Dieulouard 
on three cylinders if it had not been for a steep hill. 
Twice N° 6 nearly reached the top, only to die with a 
hard cough and slide to the bottom again. On ac- 
count of this hill I was forced to walk fourteen kilo- 
metres to Dieulouard for help. The next night I had 

172 



THE INSPECTOR'S LETTER BOX 

my first experience at night driving. A call came in 
at half-past nine to get one wounded man at Clos 
Bois. McConnell, driver of N** 7, went with me. We 
neither of us had ever been there, so it was somewhat 
a case of the blind leading the blind. It made little 
difference, however, as the night was so black that 
nothing but an owl could have seen his own nose. We 
felt our way along helped by a distant thunderstorm, 
the flicker of cannon, and the bursting of illuminating 
rockets, picked up our wounded man, and were re- 
turning through Montauville when we were stopped 
by an officer. He had a wounded man who was dying, 
the man was a native of Dieulouard and wished to die 
there, and the officer asked us to carry him there if the 
doctor at Pont-a-Mousson would give us permission. 
We took him. He had been shot through the head. 
Why he lived at all I do not know, but he not only 
lived, but struggled so hard that they had to strap 
him to the stretcher. When the doctor at the hospital 
saw him, he refused to let us carry him to Dieulouard 
because the trip would surely kill him and he might 
live if left at the hospital. Whether he did live or die 
I was never able to find out. 

Carlyle H. Holt 

Our life here is one of high lights. The transition 
from the absolute quiet and tranquilhty of peace to 
the rush and roar of war takes but an instant and all 
our impressions are kaleidoscopic in number and con- 
trast* The only way to give an impression of what 

173 



FRIENDS OF FRANCE 

takes place before us would be a series of pictures, and 
the only way I can do it is to describe a few incidents. 
Sometimes we sit in the little garden behind our ca- 
seme in the evening, comfortably drinking beer and 
smoking or talking and watching the flash of cannon 
which are so far away we cannot hear the report. At 
such times, the war is remote and does not touch us. 
At other times, at a perfectly appointed dinner-table, 
laden with fresh strawberries, delicious cakes, and 
fine wine, and graced with the presence of a charming 
hostess, the war is still more distant. Pont-a-Mous- 
son, moreover, is rich in beautifully conceived gar- 
dens of pleasant shade trees, lovely flowers, and tink- 
Hng fountains. Lounging in such a place, with a book 
or the latest mail from America, the war is entirely 
forgotten. Yet we may leave a spot like that and im- 
mediately be in the midst of the realities of war. One 
evening, about seven-thirty, after the Germans had 
been firing on Pont-a-Mousson and the neighboring 
villages for some hours, I was called to Bozeville. 
This village, which is on the road to Montauville,is a 
small cluster of one-story brick and frame buildings 
constructed in 1870 by the Germans for their soldiers. 
When I reached this place it was on fire, and the Ger- 
mans, by a constant fusillade of shrapnel shells in and 
around the buildings and on the roads near them, 
were preventing any attempt being made to extin- 
guish the fire. To drive up the narrow road, with the 
burning houses on one side and a high garden wall, 
thank Heaven, on the other, hearing every few sec- 

174 



THE INSPECTOR'S LETTER BOX 

onds the swish-bang of the shells, was decidedly nerv- 
ous work, anything but peaceful. After picking up 
the wounded, I returned to Pont-a-Mousson, where 
conditions were much worse. At this time the Ger- 
mans were throwing shells of large calibre at the 
bridge over the Moselle. To reach the hospital to 
which I was bound, it was necessary to take the road 
which led to the bridge and turn to the left about a 
hundred yards before coming to it. Just as I was 
about to make this turn, two shells struck and ex- 
ploded in the river under the bridge. There was a 
terrific roar and two huge columns of water rose into 
the air, and seemed to stand there for some seconds; 
the next instant, spray and bits of wood and shell fell 
on us and around us. A minute later I turned into the 
hospital yard, where the effect, in the uncertain and 
fast-fading light, was ghostly. Earlier in the evening 
a shell had exploded in the yard and had thrown an 
even layer of fine, powder-like dust over everything. 
It resembled a shroud in effect, for nothing disturbed 
its even surface except the crater-like hole made by 
the shell. On one side of the yard was the hospital, 
every window broken and its walls scarred by the 
pieces of shells; in the middle was the shell-hole, and 
on the other side was the body of a dead brancardier, 
lying on his back with a blanket thrown over him. He 
gave a particularly ghastly effect to the scene, for 
what was left of the daylight was just sufficient to 
gleam upon his bald forehead and throw into relief a 
thin streak of blood which ran across his head to the 

175 



FRIENDS OF FRANCE' 

ground. Needless to say I left that place as quickly 
as possible. 

Another scene which I do not think I will soon for- 
get happened in Montauville. It was just after a suc- 
cessful French attack and shows war in a little differ- 
ent light, with more of the excitement and glory 
which are supposed to be attached to battle. Montau- 
ville is a straggly little village of one- and two-story 
stone and plaster houses built on the two sides of the 
road. It is situated on a saddle which connects one 
large hill on one side of it with another large hill on 
the other side of it. It is used as a d^pot and resting- 
place for the troops near it. On this particular day 
the French had attacked and finally taken a position 
which they wanted badly, and at this time, just after 
sunset, the battle had ceased and the wounded were 
being brought into the jposte de secours. The tints of 
the western sky faded away to a cloudless blue heaven, 
marked here and there by a tiny star. To the south 
an aeroplane was circling like a huge hawk with puffs 
of orange-tinted shrapnel smoke on all sides of it. In 
the village the soldiers were all in the streets or hang- 
ing out of the windows shouting to one another. The 
spirits of every one were high. They well might be, 
for the French had obtained an advantage over the 
Germans and had succeeded in holding it. A French 
sergeant entered the town at the lower end and 
walked up the street. At first no one noticed him; 
then a slight cheer began. Before the man had walked 
a hundred yards, the soldiers had formed a lane 

176 



THE INSPECTOR'S LETTER BOX 

through which he strode. He was a big fellow, his 
face smeared with blood and dirt and his left arm 
held in a bloody sling. On his head was a German 
helmet with its glinting brass point and eagle. He 
swaggered nearly the entire length of the village 
through the shouting lines of soldiers, gesticulating 
with his one well arm and giving as he went a lively 
account of what happened. Some one started the 
** Marseillaise" and in a few minutes they were all 
singing. I have heard football crowds sing after a 
victory and I have heard other crowds sing songs, but 
I have never heard a song of such wild exultation as 
that one. It was tremendous. I wish the Germans 
could have heard it. Perhaps they did! They were 
not so far away, and the sound seemed to linger and 
echo among the hills for some minutes after the last 
note had been sung. 

Our work here on this sector of the front is about 
three kilometres in length. We do it all, as there are 
no French ambulances here. We usually carry in a 
week about eighteen hundred wounded men and our 
mileage is always around five thousand miles. The 
authorities seem to be pleased with our work and we 
know that they have never called for a car and had to 
wait for it. At any rate, we have had the satisfaction 
of doing the best we could. 

C. H. H. 



177 



FRIENDS OF FRANCE 




Three Croix de Guerre 

Several bombardments have taken place near the 
first-aid posts and hospitals where our cars are on 
duty. On the 6th, the Germans bombarded a road 
that runs along the top of a ridge several hundred 
yards from the post at Huss. One of the first shells 
landed on a farmhouse just below the road, in which 
some Territorials were quartered, killing three of 
them and wounding five others. Two of our men, ac- 
companied by the midecin auxiliaire of the post, im- 
mediately drove their cars over to the farm and res- 
cued the wounded while the bombardment was still 
going on. As a result of this prompt and courageous 
action on their part, all three men were cited in the 
order of the division and will receive the Croix de 
Guerre. 

P.L. 



178 



THE INSPECTOR'S LETTER BOX 




From Day to Day 

October 26. The head of the Sanitary Service of the 
French Government, accompanied by three generals, 
made a tour of inspection of all the units in this Sec- 
tor to-day. Mr. L , accompanied by Lieutenant 

K , went to B , where a formal inspection was 

held. Mr.L- 



- was thanked as Section Commander 
for the service rendered by Section Sanitaire Ameri- 
caine N° 2. The remarks were exceedingly compli- 
mentary. General L and the mSdecin division^ 

naire, who accompanied the party as representatives 
of the Sanitary Service in this Sector, added their 
compliments to those of General L . 



November 14. We had the first snow of the season 
to-day. All the morning it snowed and covered the 
fields and trees with a thick coating of white. In 

179 



FRIENDS OF FRANCE 

the roads it melted and they became stretches of 
yellow slush. 

B broke his arm cranking his car this morning* 

He will be out of commission for three weeks, so the 
surgeon who set it informed him. 

November 16. We received a phone message in 
the morning asking us to go to the " Mairie" to meet 
a high official. Four of us went over. A number of 

large cars were drawn up in the Place D . One 

bore the flag of the President of France. We were to 
meet Poincare. We formed a line inside the sandbag 
barricaded arcade. The President and his entourage 
passed. He stopped in front of us. "One finds you 
everywhere," he said; "you are very devoted." 
Then he shook hands with each of us and passed on. 
We wandered on down the arcade to watch the party 
go down into the shelled area of the town. A sentry 
standing near us entered into conversation. He ad- 
dressed himself to Pottle: "Did he shake hands with 
you?" he asked. "Oh, yes," repHed Pottle. "Hell," 
said the sentry; "he is n't a bit proud, is he?" 

November 25. Thanksgiving — and we celebrated 
it in the American style. We had purchased and 

guarded the turkeys, and they were prime. C 

did wonders with the army food, and it is doubtful 
if any finer Thanksgiving dinner was eaten any place 
in the world than the one we enjoyed two thousand 
yards from the Huns. 

180 



THE INSPECTOR'S LETTER BOX 

November 26. An enemy plane, flying high above 
us this morning, was forced to make a sudden descent 
to a height of three hundred metres from earth. He 
was either touched by shrapnel or his mixture froze 
and he had to seek a new level. He passed very low 
over us. One of the Frenchmen attached to our Sec- 
tion fired at him with a rifle, but did not get him. 

November 30. B was shelled and a few stray 

shots were sent into town and on the troop roads near 
us. 

Under S the meals have been sumptuous re- 
pasts and we marvel at the change. 

The writer, with two others of the Section, was 

crossing the Place after dark. As we passed the 

breach in the sandbag barricaded roads made by 

Rue , we were lighted up by the yellow glare 

coming from the shops next to the "Mairie." The 
sentry thereon duty saw us. "Pass along, my chil- 
dren, and good luck — you are more devoted than we 
are," he cried to us. 

I was startled by the voice out of the darkness and 
the surprising remarks. I glanced towards the sen- 
try's post, but the light blinded me and I could not 
see him. From his voice I knew he was old — one of 
the aged Territorials. 

"Oh, no!" I answered, for lack of anything better 
to say. 

"Yes, you are. We all thank you. You are very 
devoted," he said. 

181 



FRIENDS OF FRANCE 

"No, not that, but I thank you," I said; and we 
were swallowed up in the darkness. Then I was sorry 
one of us had n't gone back to shake hands with the 
kind-hearted old fellow. It seemed to me that it was 
the spirit of France speaking through him, voicing as 
usual her appreciation for any well-intentioned aid, 
and that we should have replied a little more formally. 

James H. McConnell 




From Another Diary 

November 13. A bad number and a grim day for 
168. At daybreak one blesse, one malade, to Moosch. 
Brake loose as an empty soap-bubble. Endless con- 
voy of mules appeared at bottom of hill. Tail-enders 
received me sideways or full breach — could n't stop 
— did n't think to put on reverse, so did some old- 
fashioned line-plunging. Heard cases crack, men 
\ 182 




A WINTER MORNING 




ALSATIAN WOODS IN WINTER 



THE INSPECTOR'S LETTER BOX 

swear, mules neigh, but heard no brake taking hold. 
Tried to stop later, but only succeeded in doing so by 
dragging against bank, which was so straight car 
rubbed along like an old elephant scratching its cut- 
lets, and padlocks, keys, tools, side-boxes removed 
like flies. Incidentally a young army on the way up 
the hill — a few casualties if I had not stopped. 
Tornado of rain. A big tree had fallen across the road 
this morning — just got under it — had been chopped 
down on the way back. Nothing doing since, but 
frightful weather — good chance to write in diary 

— most devilish wind in p.m. Walked over to Bain- 
Douches in the evening to see Hartmann's by night 
by star bombs, but weather too bad and saw no 
bombs. The valley of the Rhine so near our feet — 
impossible to realize that somewhere between us and 
that flat vast plain, with all its villages alight at 
night, were both lines of trenches — yet the trees 
only moved in the wind and the only noise the bat- 
teries to the rear. 

November 14. Got up about an hour earlier than 
any one else, looked out to find trees covered with 
snow — most splendid. The two Fords snowed into 
the background. Built fire for sleeping sluggards. 
Took two "birds" and one brancardier down the hill 

— brakes refused to work — used reverse success- 
fully — no mules slaughtered or even touched — 
oxen in the way, of great service — dropped my men 
at Moosch. Blow-out just pulling into Wesserling 

183 



FRIENDS OF FRANCE 

with two malades — let 'em walk — put on new tube 
— also blew out — ran into hospital — put on new 
tire — no lunch. 

November 15. Cold and clear, mountains amazingly 
fine — was orderly. Tried to move an eight-story 
Boche stove with Carey from wall to centre of room 
where heat might radiate more effectually — weight 
two tons — toppled like Tower of Pisa. I held it one 
second saving Carey's life after imperilling it first — 
just got out before the whole damn shooting-match 
crashed to floor a mass of broken cast-iron, broken 
baked clay, and ashes. With great patience and sci- 
ence utilized lower stones still standing by fixing top, 
shortening pipe, etc. Now in centre of room where 
one can sit, talk, read, etc. Two vain trips with 
Carey to see Burgomaster to report catastrophe. 

November 17. Snowing to beat hell. All hands to 
Bussang to evacuate hospital — minus usual sumptu- 
ous repast. Fenton moved rear roller of his boat in 
usual dashing style — came around the corner a min- 
ute later with conservative momentum and received 
from master-mechanic a severe dissertation on over- 
speeding, etc., standing on his own ruins as he spoke. 
Got late to Kriith — found Douglass there — then 
eased victuals into us at the " Joffre" — six eggs in 
my inner tube. Took three frozen feet to Bussang. 
We slipped as skating-rink camions stuck all along 
the line — snow packed in hard. 168 ran poorly on 

184 



THE INSPECTOR'S LETTER BOX 

way back — slow going on slippery road — the col 
magnificent — trees loaded with fresh snow. 

December 3. To Thorns — enormous amount of 
heavy artillery on the road — eternal convoys of 
mules on way up. Kept getting stuck — finally got 
through — found Galatti — terrible weather, road 
sea of mud, mountain torrents across it. In the after- 
noon we each took down a load of four — difficult 
driving — so tired when we got to Moosch. We had 
dinner there. My carbide worked feebly, so G. fol- 
lowed with electric lights to show me the way. On 
steep grade after zigzag I stuck — backed into bank. 
G. thought he had callS'ed his wheel, but voiture 
rolled downhill into the gutter. An hour's hellish 
pushing, cranking, etc., of no avail. Finally I got out 
a trench spade and dug away bank and he backed — 
some tringlois came by and we pushed him up. Next 
assault was on steep turn. G., having burned out his 
electric lights trying to get out of gutter, went ahead 
of me with his barnyard lantern on bowsprit. He 
missed the road. I slowed up and we rested side by 
side, neither daring to lift the toe on the brake. Fin- 
ally G. backed into a frightful hole — got out, callS'ed 
my voiture, and we went in and routed up some char^ 
bonniers in some log cabins off the road — two cabins 
full — got out of bed with most charming grace and 
pulled the car out and we finally got back — three 
hours from Moosch to there — tres tired, tous les 
deux, 

185 



FRIENDS OF FRANCE 

December 7. Hung around expecting to leave early 
to-morrow — took a contagious call in HalFs car, 
mine being chargee, to Wesserling, where at the end of 
the valley between the mountains three avians were 
flying around — two French, one German. The sky 
clear for once and, lit by sun about to sink over 
Ballon d'Alsace, was studded with white shrapnel 
puffs — while the German puffs were flaked into 
black clouds. On the way to Bussang with my con- 
tagious passed Hill who yelled, *'We stay." 

Waldo Pierce 



Further Pages 

January 9, Took Maud [the name of his car] out 
in the morning with Hill at the wheel. — Went first 
to Moosch then back by Urber to test hill. Maud 
pronounced fit for military burial after Hill's au- 
topsy. In P.M. made inventory of Mellen's old car to 
take out to-morrow. Bad dreams at night about 
Thoms. 

January 10. Nightmare of last night not up to 
actuality. Got up with Mellen's car at Thoms after 
sticking first short of watering-trough. Gate and I 
had a stake to plant at the place where Hall fell and 
start a cairn of stones. At watering-trough, just as 
I started up, a shell lit near and caused a rush of air 
by my head. As we planted the stake and gathered 
stones shells whistled round. Mellen's car a heller to 
crank. Arrived at Thoms finally sweating blood 

186 



THE INSPECTOR'S LETTER BOX 

under my steel casque in spite of temperature 
— about zero. Found Suckley, Phillips, Carey and 
Cate present. Carey and Phillips went to Paste for 
wounded — Suckley to Herrenfluh — Cate and I left 
alone. Shell N^ 1 arrives — every one to abri — Cate 
and I stay outside in kitchen. Bombardment of 
about half an hour or three quarters — can't judge. 
Last shell sent window, door, and stove in on us and 
blew us off the bench. Peeped into the next room. 
All blown to hell — shell had landed just to right of 
entrance. ... A very low p.m. Rice came tearing up 
from Henry's a minute or so after the bombardment. 
I saw one hundred yards of messed-up wire moving 
mysteriously down the road — was attached to Rice's 
car. He hurdled scalloped tin, etc., where tringlots 
had been killed. Cate coolest man in Christendom — 
was reading account of sinking of Lusitania when last 
shell arrived — just at part where torpedo struck. ... 
When some wounded came in on mules I parted with 
extreme pleasure. 

W. P. 



187 



FRIENDS OF FRANCE 




A Night Trip 

The most anxious drive I ever had in a checkered 
automobiling experience was in the evening of Sep- 
tember 30. It was at a new post in the mountains, 
not far from Hartmannsweilerkopf . I was there for 

the first time when a call came from (a station just 

behind the Hues where a shower bath is established). 
It was dusk already, but I knew no better than to 
start. The road is new since the beginning of the war; 
it follows the steep route of an old path and no lights 
are allowed on it for fear the Germans might locate 
and shell it. It is narrow, winding, and very steep, so 
steep that at places at the top of a descent it looks as 
if the road ended suddenly. There was barely enough 
twilight through the mass of trees to allow me to see 
the pack-mules returning from the day's ravitaille- 
menty but I finally made my way to the post. 

188 



THE INSPECTOR'S LETTER BOX 

I was given a poor, blind soldier to carry back. 
What a trip he must have had. If it was trying^ for 
me, it was worse for him. 

It was now dark, a moonless, starless night in the 
woods. When I started back, I could seldom see the 
road itself. I had to steer by the bank or by the gaps 
in the trees ahead. Occasionally I would feel one of 
the front wheels leave the crown of the road, and 
would quickly turn to avoid going over the preci- 
pice, but with all this I had to rush the grades which 
I could not see, but could only feel. 

At last the machine refused a hill and stalled. I 
knew that there were steeper hills ahead, worse roads 
and thicker woods. I decided that a German bullet 
would be better than a fall down the mountain-side, 
and so I lit one of my oil lamps. Some passing soldiers 
gave me a push and by the flickering light of the lan- 
tern I felt my way more easily back to the post. I was 
glad to arrive. 

Tracy J. Putnam 



189 



FRIENDS OF FRANCE 




An Attack 

A few more hours and the steady line of ambu- 
lances began its journey downward to crawl up again 
for another load, always waiting. We deposited our 
wounded at the first hospital in the valley — there 
the British took them and moved them on towards 
France. During that first night and day the wounded 
men could not filter through the hospital fast enough 
to let the new ones enter. Always there were three or 
four Fords lined up before the door, filled with men, 
perhaps dying, who could not be given even a place 
of shelter out of the cold. And it was bitterly cold. 
The mountain roads were frozen; our cars slipped and 
twisted and skidded from cliff to precipice, avoiding 
great ammunition wagons, frightened sliding horses 
and pack-mules, and hundreds of men, who, in the 
great rush, were considered able to drag themselves 
to the hospitals unaided. 

190 



THE INSPECTOR'S LETTER BOX 

I was on my way to the nearest post to the lines on 
the afternoon of the 27th when I was ordered to stop. 
Shells were falling on the road ahead and a tree was 
down across it. I waited a reasonable time for its re- 
moval and then insisted on going on. At that time 
I had never been under fire. For two kilometres I 
passed under what seemed like an archway of scream- 
ing shells. Branches fell on the car. At one time, half 
stunned, half merely scared, I fell forward on the 
wheel, stalled my engine, and had to get out and 
crank up, with pandemonium around me. Then I 
found the tree still down. For an hour I lay beside 
my car in the road, the safest place, for there was no 
shelter. We were covered with debris. Then dusk 
came, and as we must return from that road before 
dark, I tried to turn. The road was narrow, jammed 
with deserted carts and cars, and with a bank on one 
side, a sheer drop on the other. I jerked and stalled 
and shivered and finally turned, only to discover a 
new tree down behind. There could be no hesitating 
or waiting for help — we simply went through it and 
over it, in a sickening crash. And then our ordinary 
adventures began. 

John W. Clark 

There we had lived and eaten and sometimes slept 

during the attack. The soldiers of the ^th had 

practically adopted each and all of us, giving up their 
bunks and their food and wine for us at all times and 
sharing with us the various good things which had 

191 



FRIENDS OF FRANCE 

come from their homes scattered from the Savoie to 
Brittany. [;No lights were ever shown there; no 
shells had fallen anywhere near. On January 8, the 
first ones came, shrapnel and asphyxiating gas. Four 
men were killed. One of the brancardiers came out 
and stood in the road, unsheltered, to warn any 
American car that might be coming up. A car broke 
down and I took 161 up that afternoon. We climbed 
the road among the shells, and near the top a man was 
struck just in front of us. I picked him up and on 
the way down again we went through a running fire. 
Two days later our hut up there was struck and de- 
molished. So we moved. 

J. W. C. 




tV» «V*K-cl 



192 



THE INSPECTOR'S LETTER BOX 

Poilu Hardships 

The work during the past month has put an unu- 
sual strain upon every part of our cars. But it saves 
the wounded hours of painful travel, and is appreci- 
ated in the most touching manner by men as brave 
and uncomplaining as ever did a soldier's duty, who 
have more to face than is probably generally realized. 
All the horrors of modern war are known here — 
high explosives, burning oil, asphyxiating gases, and 
in addition it is no gentle country to campaign in. 
There are long marches and hard climbs, where the 
wind blows cold, and it rains, and soon will snow, for 
days at a time. 

It is, indeed, a privilege to see the courage and good 
cheer of the men who are facing these things. The 
ravitaillement may be delayed; their allotted period 
in the water-soaked trenches may he doubled, or 
trebled, and yet it is always **(7a ne fait rien" It is 
a keen satisfaction to think that your work will help 
to make the horrors of cold weather a little less pain- 
ful for such as they. 

D. D. L. McGrew 



193 



FRIENDS OF FRANCE 




Vt-U.<MJ 



Winter in Alsace 

We now received our first taste of winter, and my 
first experience made me put more faith in the rumors 
of large falls of snow than an American likes to con- 
cede to any country but his own. I was sent to our 
regular station at the poste de secours at Mittlach. 
It was the farthest away, up the mountain to Treh, 
along the bare crest for five kilometres and then 
twelve more on a winding, narrow road to the valley 
of Metzeral. There was little work then, and the car 
that I was to relieve got a trip late that night in what 
was, even at Mittlach, a terrific rainstorm. The next 
morning it continued raining, but I could see the 
peaks of the mountains covered with snow; still no 
wounded, so I waited, a little anxious, as no relieving 
car had arrived. Late in the afternoon, just after 
dark, the familiar sound of a Ford brought me out of 

194 



.^ ,mi^ 




.4 


' '"^M^'^^S " ^^'^» - V'-i/ ^'wlSr ' '^\k^i^)ttf*^K^^^^^Ki 


1^ 


^jS^t^^f^> 


'^I^^^M 


i 


m 


^m^-'^ 




WINTER IN ALSACE 



THE INSPECTOR'S LETTER BOX 

the poste de secours, and I found Rice, with his car 
covered with snow which even the rain had n't yet 
melted. His story was of helping the car I had re- 
lieved, all morning, in their efforts to pull it on to the 
road from which a heavy ammunition wagon had 
pushed it, neither vehicle being able to stick to the 
icy road. Farther on he had met continual snow- 
drifts. His eagerness to bring me chains, my only 
chance of getting up, persuaded him to keep on, and 
he eventually got through with everybody's help on 
the road. We decided to wait until the storm was 
over, our only alternative, and proceeded to make 
ourselves as comfortable as we could, which means a 
stove, somewhere to sleep, and plenty to read and 
smoke. It was four days before the snow let up and 
we had visions of a long and lonely winter, but as soon 
as the storm broke we started up, and, as it proved, in 
the nick of time, as the five kilometres along the crest 
were again swept by snow and sleet and drifts were 
beginning to form. The Mittlach service had to be 
abandoned after this, although in late November 
and early December a car could go through, but it was 
impossible to assure the service and it was found bet- 
ter to have sleighs and wagons do the work. 

Stephen Galatti 

The cold has been intense during the last few days 
and breaking the ice to wash is a usual morning per- 
formance. A temperature of 5° below zero Fahren- 
heit does not facilitate starting a Ford ambulance that 

195 



FRIENDS OF FRANCE 

has been standing out all night; in fact, almost every 
morning it takes about fifteen minutes to start each 
car with the aid of hot water, hot potiers, and other 
appliances that the inventive genius of our various 
drivers supplies. 

On either side of you a wilderness of snow. Take 
your eyes off the road and you seem to be in the great 
forests of a new country. Look back on the road and 
turn sharply to avoid the first of a convoy of brand- 
new American tractors, or a maze of telephone wires 
with their red-and- white labels which have been pulled 
from their supports by the snow. The great rocks and 
banks resplendent with their coating of ice, the trees, 
the snow, the occasional deer, fox, or rabbit contrast 
strangely with the road — the narrow, winding, moun- 
tain road serving for almost all forms of traffic, save 
the railroad, known to man. Mules, mules, mules, 
always mules, with their drivers hanging on to the 
beasts' tails. H. Dudley Hale 




THE INSPECTOR'S LETTER BOX 




Weeks of Quiet 

With the change of conductors N° 170 has fallen 
upon evil times. She has carried meat and bread for 
the Section, and even coal; she has run through miles 
of snowstorm to bring relief to those who were suffer- 
ing from toothache, scarlatina, or mumps; and she 
has patiently borne permissionnaires from hospital to 
railroad station; but the shriek of shot and shell has 
become entirely unfamiliar to her ears. At first it was 
the fault of the conductor, who had never conducted 
before reaching Bordeaux, and only some half-dozen 
times between leaving Bordeaux and arriving in 
Alsace. He was not adjudged capable of conducting 
up any mountain in general nor up the slopes adjoin- 
ing Hartmannsweilerkopf in particular. He went up 
once or twice without 170, to inspect and experience, 
but it is an experience of which a little goes a long 

197 



FRIENDS OF FRANCE 

way when not prompted by duty. Afterward it was 
the fault of those who sit in the seats of the mighty, 
and still is, and apparently will remain so; but at no 
time was 170 to blame. 

We left Alsace one morning early in February 
when the valleys were filled with tinted mist and the 
snowy hill-slopes were glowing pink with sunrise, and 
we hated doing it. Various reasons have been offered 
for our departure by various persons in authority, — 
but none of them satisfactory and convincing, — and 
we still look back upon it as the Promised Land. 
We formed a convoy of twenty-three cars, in which 
170 was placed immediately behind the leader — an 
arrangement to which twenty-one persons objected. 
Every time the side boxes came open and the extra 
tins of gasoline scattered over the landscape, or when 
the engine stopped through lack of sympathy with the 
engineer, three or four cars would manage to slip by. 
It was a sort of progressive-euchre party in which 170 
never held a winning hand. No one concerned had 
the least idea whither we were headed. The first 
night we spent at Rupt, where there is an automobile 
park. We took it on hearsay that there was an auto- 
mobile park, for we left the next morning without 
having seen it; but when two days later we joined the 
Twentieth Army Corps — the Fighting Twentieth — 
at Moyen, we were reported as coming straight from 
the automobile park at Rupt. Consequently we were 
assumed to be ready for indefinite service "to the last 
button of the last uniform," and when we had ex- 

198 



THE INSPECTOR'S LETTER BOX 

plained that mechanically speaking our last uniform 
was on its last button the Fighting Twentieth shook 
us oS. 

However, we spent a week at Moyen — in it up to 
our knees. The surrounding country was dry and 
almost dusty, but Moyen has an atmosphere of its 
own and local color — and the streets are not clean. 
Yet to most of us the stay was intensely interesting. 
It lies just back of the high- water mark of German in- 
vasion, and the little villages and towns round about 
show like the broken wreckage tossed up by the tide 
— long streets of roofless, blackened ruins, and in the 
midst the empty skeleton of a church. The tower has 
usually been pierced by shells, and the broken chimes 
block the entrance. Nothing has been done to alter or 
disguise. The fields surrounding are pitted with shell 
craters, which have a suggestive way of lining the 
open roads; along the edge of the roads are rifle pits 
and shallow trenches filled with a litter of cartridge 
boxes and bits of trampled uniform and accoutre- 
ment, blue and red, or greenish gray, mixed together, 
and always and everywhere the long grave mounds 
with the little wooden crosses which are a familiar 
feature of the landscape. It lacks, perhaps, the bald 
grim cruelty of Hartmannsweilerkopf , but it is a place 
not to be forgotten. 

^ From Moyen we moved on to Tantonville, a place 
not lacking in material comforts, but totally devoid 
of soul; and from there we still make our round of 
posts — of one, t^o, or four cars, and for two, four, 

199 



FRIENDS OF FRANCE 

or eight days. In some, the work is fairly constant, 
carrying the sick and second-hand wounded from post 
to hospital and from hospital to railroad; in others, 
one struggles against mental and physical decay — • 
and it is from the latter of these in its most aggravated 
form that the present communication is penned. 

At Oeleville, we saw the class of 1916 called out, — 
brave, cheerful-looking boys, standing very straight 
at attention as their officers passed down the line, and 
later, as we passed them on the march, cheering 
loudly for *'les AmSricains'' — and so marching on to 
the open lid of hell at Verdun. The roads were filled 
with soldiers, and every day and all day the troop- 
trains were rumbling by to the north, and day after 
day and week after week the northern horizon echoed 
with the steady thunder of artillery. Sometimes, ly- 
ing awake in the stillness of dawn to listen, one could 
not count the separate explosions, so closely did they 
follow each other. The old man who used to open the 
railway gate for me at Dombasle would shake his head 
and say that we ought to be up at Verdun, and once 
a soldier beside him told him that we were neutrals 
and not supposed to be sent under fire. I heard that 
suggestion several times made, and one of our men 
used to carry in his pocket a photograph of poor Hall's 
car to refute it. 

There was a momentary thrill of interest when- a 
call came for four cars to Baccarat — a new post and 
almost on the front; there was an English Section 
there in need of assistance, and we four who went in- 

200 



THE INSPECTOR'S LETTER BOX 

tended to " show them how." But it seemed that the 
call had come too late and the pressing need was over; 
the last batch of German prisoners had been brought 
in the day before and the active fighting had ceased. 
We stepped into the long wooden cabin where they 
waited — the German wounded — and they struggled 
up to salute — a more pitiful, undersized, weak- 
chested, and woe-begone set of human derelicts I 
hope never to see again in uniform; and as we stood 
among them in our strong, warm clothes, for it was 
snowing outside, all of us over six feet tall, I felt sud- 
denly uncomfortable and ashamed. 

The oflBcer in charge of the administration said 
that a car was needed to go down the valley to Saint- 
Die, but we must be very careful for Saint-Die was 
under bombardment. Once we were startled at lunch 
time by an explosion near the edge of town. Three of 
us stepped to the door. We were eating the rarity of 
blood sausage and the fourth man kept his seat to 
help himself from the next man's plate. As we looked 
out there came a second explosion a little farther off, 
and then in a few moments a telephone call for an 
ambulance, with the news that a Taube had struck a 
train. When I reached the place the train had gone 
on, carrying ten slightly wounded to Luneville, and 
I brought back the other two on stretchers — one a 
civilian struck in a dozen places, but otherwise ap- 
parently in excellent health and spirits; the other was 
a soldier in pretty bad shape. It must have been ex- 
cellent markmanship for the Taube, since we had seen 

201 



FRIENDS OF FRANCE 

notliing in the clear blue sky overhead nor heard the 
characteristic whir of the motor, and yet both shell 
craters were very close to the tracks. In Alsace they 
were constantly in sight, but seldom attacked and 
almost never scored a hit, while the French gunners 
seemed perfectly happy to fire shrapnel at them all 
afternoon with the same indecisive result. One could 
not even take the white shrapnel clouds as a point of 
departure in looking for the aeroplane — though the 
French artillery is very justly famous for its accuracy 
of fire. In this instance as in all air raids the success 
scored seemed pitifully futile, for it was not a military 
train, and most of the wounded were noncombatants. 
It had added its little unnecessary mite of suffering, 
and of hatred to the vast monument which Germany 
has reared to herself and by which she will always be 
remembered. W. Kerr Rainsford 




202 



THE INSPECTOR'S LETTER BOX 

Night 

You can little imagine how lonely it is here under 
the black, star-swept sky, the houses only masses of 
regular blackness in the darkness, the street silent as 
a dune in the desert, and devoid of any sign of human 
life. Muffled and heavy, the explosion of a torpedo 
inscribes its solitary half-note on the blank lines of 
the night's stillness. I go up to my room, and sigh 
with relief as my sulphur match boils blue and breaks 
into its short-lived yellow flame. Shadows are born, 
leaping and rising, and I move swiftly towards my 
candle-end, the flame catches, and burns straight and 
still in the cold, silent room. The people who lived 
here were very religious; an ivory Christ on an ebony 
crucifix hangs over the door, and a solemn-eyed, pure 
and lovely head of Jeanne d'Arc stands on my mantel. 
What a marvellous history — hers! I think it the 
most beautiful, mystic tale in our human annals. 

Silence — sleep — the crowning mercy. A few 
hours go by. 

Morning 

"There is a call, Monsieur Shin — un couchi 
a " 

I wake. The night clerk of the Bureau is standing 
in the doorway. An electric flashlight in his hand 
sets me a-blinking. I dress, shivering a bit, and am 
soon on my way. The little gray machine goes cauti- 
ously on in the darkness, bumping over shell-holes, 
guided by the iridescent mud of the last day's rain. I 

203 



FRIENDS OF FRANCE 

reach a wooded stretch -r — phisil a rifle bullet goes 
winging somewhere. A bright flash illuminates the 
road. A shell sizzles overhead. I reach the poste de 
secours and find a soldier in the roadway. More elec- 
tric hand-lamps. Down a path comes a stretcher and 
a man wounded in arm and thigh. We put him into 
the wagon, cover him up, and away I start on my long, 
dark ride to the hospital, a lonely, nerve-tightening 

ride. 

Stray Thoughts 

The voice of war is the voice of the shell. You hear 
a perfectly horrible sound as if the sky were made of 
cloth and the Devil were tearing it apart, a screaming 
undulating sound followed by an explosion of fearful 
violence, hang! The violence of the affair is what im- 
presses you, the suddenly released energy of that mur- 
derous burst. When I was a child I used to wander 
around the shore and pick up hermit crabs and put 
them on a plate. After a little while you would see a 
very prudent claw come out of the shell, then two 
beady eyes, finally the crab in propria persona. I was 
reminded of that scene on seeing people come cauti- 
ously out of their houses after a shell had fallen, peep- 
ing carefully out of doorways, and only venturing to 
emerge after a long reconnoitring. 

I am staying here. It was my design to leave at the 
beginning of the year, but why should I go? I am very 
happy to be able to do something here, very proud to 
feel that I am doing something. In times to come 

204 



THE INSPECTOR'S LETTER BOX 

when more Americans realize their lost opportunity, 
there will be many regrets, but you and I will be con- 
tent. So wish me the best. Not that there is anything 
attractive to keep me here. To live continually under 
shell fire is a hateful experience, and the cheerless life, 
so empty of any domesticity, and the continuous 
danger are acid to any one with memories of an old, 
beloved New England hearth and close family ties and 
friendships. To half jest, I am enduring war for peace 
of mind. 

How lonely my old house must be when the winter 
storms surge round it at midnight. How the great 
flakes must swirl round its ancient chimney, and fall 
softly down the black throat of the fireplace to the 
dark, ungarnished hearth. The goblin who polished 
the pewter plates in the light of the crumbling fire- 
brands has gone to live with his brother in a hollow 
tree on the hill. But when you come to Topsfield, the 
goblin himself, red flannel cap and all, will open the 
door to you as the house's most honored and welcome 
guest. 

AfusSe Sclairante has just run over the wood — the 
hois de la mort — the wood of the hundred thousand 
dead. And side by side with the dead are the living, 
the soldiers of the army of France, holding, through 
bitter cold and a ceaseless shower of iron and hell, the 
far-stretching lines. If there is anything I am proud 
of, it is of having been with the French army — the 
most devoted and heroic of the war. 

H. Sheahan 
205 



FRIENDS OF FRANCE 




A Gallant BlessS 

I was stationed at one of our posies de secours the 
other night during a terrible rainstorm. The wind 
does blow on top of these mountains when it begins! 
About bedtime, which is at 7.30 (we eat our dinner at 
4.30 — it is pitch dark then), a call came from one of 
our posies three kilometres nearer the line. There was 
a captain wounded and they asked me to go for him. 
I cannot speak French well, but I made them under- 
stand. The posie is at the foot of the mountain, hid- 
den from the Boches by the trees in the woods only. 
At night we cannot use lights, for the Germans would 
see us easily, and then there would be a dead Ameri- 
can in short order. Of course, I told them I would go, 
but it would be dangerous for the blessS. I could 
jump out in case I should run into a ravine, but I 
could not save the man on the stretcher if anything 
happened. They understood, and, after about half 
an hour, we heard another knock on the cabin door, 
and they brought the captain in — four men, one on 

206 



THE INSPECTOR'S LETTER BOX 

each corner of a stretcher. They put him on the floor, 
and in the lantern light of the room (made of rough 
timbers) one could see he was vitally stricken by the 
death color of his face and lips. He had his full senses. 
It was my duty then to take him down the opposite 
slope of the mountain to the hospital. I started my 
car and tried to find my way through the trees in the 
dark. The wind was almost strong enough to blow 
me off the seat, and the rain made my face ache. The 
only light I had was that of the incendiary bombs of 
the French and the Germans at the foot of the hill, 
about one and a half kilometres away. These bombs 
are so bright they illuminate the whole sky for miles 
around like a flash of lightning. I must admit my 
nerves were a little shaken, taking a dying man into 
my car under such conditions, almost supernatural. 
It did seem like the lights of the spirits departing 
mixed with the moaning wind and the blackness of 
the night, and the pounding of the hand-grenades in 
the front lines so near. They gave me another blessS 
with the captain. This man had been shot through 
the mouth only, and was well enough to sit up in back 
and watch the captain. I could use my lights after I 
had passed down the side a short distance out of sight 
of the lines. We must run our motors in low speed or 
we use up our brakes in one trip. All the poor capitaine 
could say during the descent was *'J'ai soif,'' except 
once when he requested me to stop the car, as the road 
was too rough for him, and we had to rest. When we 
reached the hospital, I found a bullet had struck one 

207 



FRIENDS OF FRANCE 

shoulder and passed through his back and out the 
other shoulder. He also had a piece of shell in his side. 
A few hours before he had walked back from the 
trenches into the woods to see a position of the Ger- 
mans; they saw him — and seldom does a man escape 
when seen at fairly close range. He was vitally 
wounded. I climbed up the mountain watching the 
fire-flashes in the sky, feeling pretty heavy-hearted 
and homesick, but with strengthened resolve to help 
these poor chaps all I possibly could. 

The next day I had another trip from the same 
station on the mountain to the same hospital at five 
o'clock in the afternoon — then dark as midnight. 
The sisters told me the capitaine was better; the ball 
had not severed the vertebra and there was hope for 
him. They told me also that the general had arrived 
and conferred upon him the Cross of the LSgion 
(THonneuT. It was reassuring to hear that he was bet- 
ter and had distinguished himself so well, and I went 
back up the trail this night with a lighter heart. I had 
felt really guilty, for I did not have a thing in my car 
to give him the night before when he asked me to stop 
the car and said, *'J'ai soif^ Never did I want a 
spoonful of whiskey more and never have I regretted 
not having it more. I could not give him water — he 
had some fever; besides, though there are many 
streams of it running down the mountain, no one 
dares to touch it. Water is dangerous in wartime, and 
we have all been warned against it. 

I was called the next morning for the same trip and 
208 



THE INSPECTOR'S LETTER BOX 

when I reached the hospital at eight o'clock it was 
still raining — now for three days ! I met Soeur Siege- 
bert in the hall — carrying her beads, her prayer-book 
and a candle. She is one of the good nuns who always 
gives me hot soup or tea with rum in it when I come 
in cold, wet, and hungry — and many times I and the 
others have blessed her! My first question was: 
** Comment ga va avec le capitaine ce matin ?" All she 
said and could say was ''FinV He had passed out a 
short time before I got there. He was only thirty 
years old, tall and handsome, and they say he led a 
whole battalion with the courage of five men. 

A little later I stepped into the death chamber in a 
little house apart from the hospital. It was cold, wet, 
and smelled strongly of disinfectant, just as such 
places should, and in a dim, small room lighted by two 
candles, upon a snowy white altar made by the nuns, 
there he lay on a bier of the purest linen beautifully 
embroidered, whiter even than the pallor of his fea- 
tures and hands, and as I came near him the only 
color in the room was the brilliant touch of red and 
silver in his LSgion d'Honneur medal, which was 
pinned over his heart. His peaceful expression as- 
sured me he was happy at last, and made me real- 
ize that this is about the only happiness left for all 
these poor young chaps I see marching over these 
roads in companies for the trenches, where their only 
shelter is the sky and their only rest underground in 
dug-outs. When they go into the trenches they have 

209 



FRIENDS OF FRANCE 

a slim chance of coming out whole again, and they 
pass along the road in companies with jovial spirits, 
singing songs and laughing as though they were going 
to a picnic. I see them come back often, too; they are 
still smiling but nearly always in smaller numbers. 
What can they have in view when they see their num- 
bers slowly but surely dwindling! I marvel at their 
superb courage! 

Luke C. Doyle 

Perils of a Blizzard 

The other night, just as I was going to crawl in, 
three blesses arrived from the trenches, another was 
down the road in a farmhouse waiting for the mSdeciT. 
chef; he was too badly wounded to go farther. They 
asked me to take the men to the hospital at Krilt, 
which is back over the mountains twenty miles, and 
of course I said I would. I dressed again (I hated to 
because it was warm in the little log shack and it had 
begun to rain outside); I lit my lantern, and went 
out to the shelter where the cars were, got my tank 
filled with gas, and my lights ready to burn when I 
could use them. It was so black one could see nothing 
at all. We put two of the blessSs on stretchers and 
pushed them slowly into the back of the car; the other 
sat in front with me. We did this under the protec- 
tion of the hill where the poste de secours is located. 
When one goes fifty yards on the road beyond the 
station there is a valley, narrow but clear, which is 
in full view of the trenches, and it is necessary to go 

210 



THE INSPECTOR'S LETTER BOX 

over this road going and coming. In the daytime one 
cannot be seen because the French have put up a row 
of evergreens along it which hides the road. I started 
and proceeded very carefully, keeping my lantern 
under a blanket, and we soon arrived at the house 
where the other hlessS was waiting for the doctor. It 
was a typical French farmhouse, little, old, and dirty 
inside, and white outside. I pushed in the door and 
stepped down into the flagstone kitchen. On the 
floor lay the chasseur on a stretcher, his face pale un- 
der the lamplight from the table. The medecin chef 
was bending over him injecting tetanus (lockjaw) 
anti-toxin into his side, and with each punch of the 
needle the poor fellow, already suffering from terrible 
wounds, would squirm but not utter a word. The 
soldiers stood around the tiny room, their heads 
almost touching the brown rafters above. We took 
the man out to my car on the stretcher, carrying the 
light under the coat of one of the stretcher-bearers. 
If the Germans see a light moving anywhere in the 
French territory, they will fire on it if they think it 
near enough. I started up the mountain with my 
load of wounded. On either side of the road the 
French guns at certain places pounded out their 
greetings to the Boches, and the concussion would 
shake the road so that I could feel it in my car. I 
could light my lights after about a mile, so I pro- 
ceeded slowly up the mountain in low speed. The heat 
from my motor kept the blesses and myself warm. 
About halfway up, we ran into the clouds and it 

211 



FRIENDS OF FRANCE 

became so foggy one could scarcely see; farther up 
it became colder and began to snow. I had no chains 
on my car (none to be had). They need so many 
things here, if they only had the money to buy them. 
I thought of the time you and I got stuck at Prince- 
ton, and it worried me to be without chains, espe- 
cially since I had three helpless men inside and one 
out. I kept climbing up and the higher I went the 
more it snowed and the harder it blew. Near the top 
it became veritably blinding — snow, sleet, and wind 
— a typical northeasterly American blizzard. The 
little car ploughed on bravely; it stuck only once on a 
sharp turn, and by backing it I was able to make it 
by rushing it. I could not see the road, the sleet was 
blowing into my face so and the snow was so thick. 
At last I reached the summit and the wind was so 
strong there it actually lifted my car a little at one 
time. On one side of the road was a high embankment 
and on the other a ravine sloping down at least one 
thousand feet. I was scared to death, for without 
chains we were liable to skid and plunge down this 
depth. The snow had been falling all day, and it had 
drifted in places over a yard deep. Twice I took a 
level stretch to be the road, but discovered my mis- 
take in time to back up; the third time was more seri- 
ous; I plunged ahead through a drift which I thought 
was the road, and finally I stuck and could move 
neither way. I could not leave these men there all 
night wounded, and the blizzard did not stop, so my 
only means was to find help. I walked back to what 

212 











1 


' kJ 










■'^I 


iW 


^ 






; 






1 


1 


^' cji. ? 


^flf^^te^. 




^^^^y 



WHAT NIGHT TRIPS WITHOUT LIGHTS SOMETIMES MEAN 




THE DANGERS OF THE ROAD 



THE INSPECTOR'S LETTER BOX 

I thought was the road and kept on toward a slight, 
gHmmering light I could see in the right direction. It 
was an enclosure for mules which haul ammunition 
over the mountains, and I felt safe again, for I knew 
there were a lot of Territorial soldiers with them. 
I hauled them out of bed; it was then 10.30. They 
came with me and pushed me back on the road, also 
pushed me along — ten of them — until they got me 
on the descent, and from there on the weight of my 
car carried me down through the drifts. I arrived at 
the hospital at 12.30 and was the happiest man you 
have ever seen to get those poor fellows there safely. 
I was sent back to Mittlach the next day to get 
four more wounded. They were what are called assis, 
not couches, fortunately, because the snow on top of 
Trekopf had been falling and drifting all day and 
night. When I got to the top of the mountain and 
started down, the roads had been broken and beaten 
down by munition wagons and were like a sheet of 
ice. I started down without chains, and with all my 
brakes on the car began to slide slowly down the road. 
It slid toward the edge of the ravine and the two front 
wheels went over; it stopped, I got it back on the 
road, and turned the radiator into the bank on the 
other side and tried tying rags on the rear wheels to 
keep the car from going down, when a big wagon with 
four horses came down the hill behind me. It was so 
slippery that the horses started to slide down on their 
haunches, and, with brakes on, the driver could not 
stop them. The horses came on faster and they slid 

213 



FRIENDS OF FRANCE 

into the rear of my car, pushed it along for about six 
feet, and then nothing could stop it. It started down 
the road. I yelled to the wounded, " Vous, jetez vous.** 
They understood and piled out just in time. The car 
ran across the road and plunged down into the ravine. 
There was a lot of snow on the side of the ravine, and 
it had piled up so that it stopped the car part way 
down, and it was not injured very much. It took nine 
men and as many mules to pull it out. Now that the 
snow has come, I think our service to Mittlach will 
have to be abandoned. 

L. C. D. 

At Tomansplatz the other day an officer and I 

started for , one of our posies. We took a short 

cut over a high hill from which one could look easily 

down on , where all the fighting had been going 

on. There is a path over this hill which is hidden by 
trees, and on the top is a long boyau to pass through 
so as to keep out of sight of the Germans in clear 
weather. When we reached the top, we stepped out 
of the path to get a view of the valley, and it was 
wonderful looking down on the French and German 
trenches, and to see the hill all shot to pieces and the 
trees broken to stubs — living scars of the fighting 
that had gone on. We did not get by unseen, for the 
Germans are always on the job. They have observa- 
tion posts in the trees, hard to be seen, but easy to see 
from. There was a lot of firing going on, and we could 
see the French shells landing in the German lines. I 

214 




MULE CONVOY IN ALSACE 




THE "POSTE" NEAR HARTMANNSWEILERKOPF 
AFTER A BOMBARDMENT 



THE INSPECTOR'S LETTER BOX 

had a premonition that something was going to hap- 
pen and stepped behind a tree. I heard particularly 
one big gun fire, and wondered if by any chance it was 
meant for us. It took only three or four seconds to 
confirm my suspicion, for the shriek of a shell came 
our way. As they often pass high over our heads and 
we are familiar with the sound, I was still in doubt, 
when it burst not fifty yards away. We did not wait 
to investigate further, but jumped for the hoyau when 
another shriek was heard, and we were just in time, 
for the shell burst not far behind us. We could tell 
when they were firing at us, for we could hear the gun 
fire, — it sounded like a 150 mm., which is about 6- 
inch bore, — then came the shriek, and then the burst- 
ing. It certainly is a strange, unwelcome sound when 
you know you are the target. We ran down the hoyau 
toward the back of the hill for all we were worth, and 
they followed us, but we did not stop to look or listen, 
we almost rolled down the other side of the hill, but 
it was to safety, thank Heaven. The only thing that 
happened, to me was a scratch on the back of my 
hand. Never again! The sensation of shells coming 
at one is novel but nauseating, and I keep away from 
the lines from now on. 

I must tell you that we have received a citation, and 
Colonel Hill's brother the Croix de Guerre for the work 
we did during the attack of October 15 to 19. Two 
more citations and we receive, each one, the Croix de 
Guerre, L. C. D. 

215 



FRIENDS OF FRANCE 

Poignant Impressions 

I had a wild ride last night in the rain. A German 
shell landed in a town only two kilometres from the 
front and killed four civilians and wounded one 
woman. I had to go and get her. For two kilometres 
the road runs over a slight rise in the plain, in full 
view of the Germans. It is all screened off with brush 
cut and stuck up along the side toward the lines, but 
here and there the brush was blown down by the 
terrific wind which came with the storm. We could 
not use lights, but we did not need them, for, though 
it was raining like fury, the Germans were sending up 
illuminating bombs which lighted up the country for 
miles around. They are the most fascinating yet 
weird things you have ever witnessed. This ball of 
fire rises from the trenches to a height of one hundred 
feet, and then floats along slowly through the air for 
a, quarter of a mile, illuminating everything around. 
At one time one came directly for us, and we stopped 
the car and watched it. At the roadside stood a huge 
crucifix, and, as this ball of fire approached, it sil- 
houetted the cross, and all we could see was the beau- 
tiful shadow of the figure on the cross rising from the 
earth against the weird glow of white fire. It seemed 
like the sacrifice of Calvary and the promise of suc- 
cess for poor France. 

We did not dare to use our low speed for fear the 
Bodies would hear us, so we tore over this road on 
high, rushing past the bare spots, afraid of being seen. 
The illuminating bombs are used for this purpose 

216 



IP 




:i,'m:m-A 


& ::sa^^S:g?^:' 


Ji^^WJI^KT ■ , J^^ 


>^-^ 








"':> -m^^'''^- 



ONE OF OUR CARS IN TROUBLE 




COFFINS IN COURTYARD OF BASE HOSPITAL IN ALSACE - 
AMONG THEM RICHARD HALL'S 



THE INSPECTOR'S LETTER BOX 

only; the one which came toward us went out before 
it reached us, for which we were grateful. We got 
the woman. She had to have her arm amputated. 

December 27 

We have had very strenuous times, as a big attack 
has just taken place and the wounded have come in so 
fast and so badly cut up they could not give them the 
care they would like to, as everything is so crowded. 
The Germans lost a lot of trenches, and almost two 
thousand of them were taken prisoners. They have 
been shelling the French lines and towns constantly; 
since the 22d, our cars have been more or less under 
fire. We moved our quarters about six kilometres 
nearer the line and bring the wounded in to the hos- 
pital three times a day. The Germans shelled this 
place, — why we do not know, for there is nothing 
military here but the hospital, and why should people 
of any intelligence and feeling wish to shell a hospi- 
tal? 

One of our men was killed on Christmas Day and 
we are terribly broken up over it. He was going from 
this hospital to the poste we go to daily over a road up 
the mountain. At four o'clock Christmas morning 
one of our boys started up this road, which goes up 
and up with no level place on it. He passed the mid- 
dle of the journey when he thought he noticed a 
wagon turned over about forty feet down in the ra- 
vine. He went to a point where he could stop his car, 
took his lantern, and walked back. He found one of 

217 



FRIENDS OF FRANCE 

our Fords so demolished it could not be distinguished. 
The top of the car was up in a tree and so were the 
extra tires; there was nothing on the ground but a 
chassis. He saw no one around, but on going down a 
little farther, he saw a bundle of blankets which we 
always carry for the wounded, and, on walking up to 
it, he found one of our fellows, Dick Hall. He was 
lying on his side with his arms fixed as if driving and in 
a sitting position, cold and rigid. He had been dead 
a couple of hours. Walter, who found him, went back 
up the road for assistance, and, while there, Hall's 
brother came along in his car and asked what the 
matter was and offered his assistance. Walter told 
him his brakes were not working and he was fixing 
them, so Hall, knowing nothing of his brother, passed 
on up the mountain, got his load of wounded, and 
took them to the hospital. 



In the Hospital 

January 1, 1916 

This brings the war home to us ! This and the suf- 
fering and torments of the wounded make me sick at 
heart. I have seen them suffer particularly since this 
last attack, as I am a hless6 myself — and am in a 
French hospital. It is only a slight arm wound; the 
bone is cracked a little, but not broken. I am here to 
have the piece of shell drawn out and am assisting 
these poor wounded all I can. I was sent to the poste 
we have nearest the lines, on the other side of the 

218 



THE INSPECTOR'S LETTER BOX 

mountain and hidden in the woods. The trenches 
begin at this poste^ The poste itself is an abri, a bomb- 
proof dug-out in the ground. The roof and supports 
are made of timbers a foot or more thick, over these 
are placed two feet of heavy rock and again two feet 
of earth. When I got there the Germans began bom- 
barding, and fired shells into these woods and into 
this poste for almost five hours. I never want to see 
another such bombardment; it was frightful. I saw 
shells land among horses, smash big trees in half 
within ten and twenty yards. I saw three men hit; one 
had his face shot away. The poste became so full of 
wounded we had to stand near the doorway, which is 
partly protected by a bomb-proof door. It was not 
exactly safe inside, for the shells, if big enough, when 
they hit such an ahri often loosen the supports, and 
the roof, weighing tons, falls in and buries people 
alive. A man in the same room with me in the hospi- 
tal here was in an ahri not far from where we were 
when it was struck; the roof fell and killed three men 
who were with him and he was buried for an hour. A 
shell struck a tree not eight feet off from where we 
were standing and smashed it in half; it fell and al- 
most killed one of two brancardiers (stretcher-bearers) 
who were carrying a dead man past the door. A piece 
of the eclat hit the other brancardier in the head and 
killed him. The man standing beside me had his hand 
shot off, and I got hit in the elbow. Three pieces went 
through my coat, but only one went into the arm. If 
I had not been standing against the door I might have 

219 



FRIENDS OF FRANCE 

fared worse. I was carried with two other wounded 
by one of our fellows up the steep mountain road to 
our second 'poste. They were bombarding that road as 
well as the jposte. We could see the sky redden from 
the flash of the guns below and we could hear the 
shells shriek as they came toward us, and the 6clat not 
too far away. Twice we started the Ford on the way 
up; it stalled and took five precious minutes to get it 
going again. The force of one explosion knocked the 
fellow with me over when he walked ahead to try and 
make out the road. We stuck in the road twice, not 
daring to pass a wagon conveying munitions. We 
could not make the hill, it was so steep, and we had to 
seek men to push us. It was pitch-black and we could 
not use our lights. This with two gravely wounded 
men on our hands rather took the nerve out of us. We 
finally got back to headquarters and found them bom- 
barding there, one shell having struck not far from 
the hospital. 

January 20 

I am still in the hospital, but am glad to say my 
arm is almost quite well again. It does take time. 
The bombardment by the Germans of all our former 
pastes has become pretty nerve-racking. The house 
we took for the attack has been hit twice. We had 
moved out only the day before. They struck a school- 
house close by and killed a nun and wounded three 
harmless children. Our cars have been hit by scraps 
of shell, but fortunately when none of the men were 
in them. 

220 



THE INSPECTOR'S LETTER BOX 

The suffering of the men in this hospital and the 
cries in the night make it an inferno. Though I am 
glad I can help a little, I must say it is on my nerves. 

In this hospital — which is one of the best — they 
need very badly beds for men who have had their 
vertebrae broken. These men live from two to six 
months in a frame on their backs all the time. This is 
the way they spend the last months of their lives. 
We have three men in this condition now, and each 
time they are moved it takes at least four men to 
change them and they suffer terribly. The special 
beds I speak of are made on pulleys with bottom and 
sides which can be opened for washing and service 
purposes. They cost forty dollars and France cannot 
afford to buy them, as she has so many needs. If you 
could raise some money for this purpose, you would 
be doing these poor fellows the last favors they will 
have on this earth and help them in their suffering. 

L. C. D. 



221 



ERIENDS OF FRANCE 




New Quarters 

August 6, 1915 

I was delighted to see "Doc" to-day. He arrived 

yesterday evening from Paris, but I was on M 

duty, so we did not meet until this morning. We had 
a long talk and I told him the story of the fatal 22d; 
the recital of it only seems to have reimpressed me 
with the horror of that night. 

We are now quite comfortably settled in our new 
quarters, a house never shelled until just after our 
occupation of it, when we received a 77 a few feet 
from our windows. I do not know why it has been 
spared unless the Boches were anxious not to destroy 
a creation so obviously their own. Architecturally it 
is incredible — a veritable pastry cook's chef d^oeuvre. 
Some of the colors within are so vivid that hours of 
darkness cannot drive them out of vision. There is 
no piano, but musical surprises abound. Everything 
you touch or move promptly plays a tune, even a 

^22 



THE INSPECTOR'S LETTER BOX 

stein plays '' Deutschland iiber alles'' — or something. 
Still the garden full of fruit and vegetables will make 
up for the rest. Over the brook which runs through 
it is a little rustic bridge — all imitation wood made 
of cast iron I Just beneath the latter I was electrified 
to discover a very open-mouthed and particularly 
yellow crockery frog quite eighteen inches long! A 
stone statue of a dancing boy in front of the house 
was too much for us all. We ransacked the attic and 
found some articles of clothing belonging to our ab- 
sent hostess, and have so dressed it that, with a tin 
can in its hand, it now looks like an inadequately clad 
lady speeding to her bath-house with a pail of fresh 
water. 

Last night "Mac" and I were on night duty at 

M , and when we arrived at the telephone bureau 

— where we lie on stretchers fully dressed in our blan- 
kets waiting for a call (the rats would keep you awake 
if there were no work to do) — we were told that they 
expected a bad bombardment of the village. " Mac" 
and I tossed up for the first call, and I lost. " Auberge 
Saint-Pierre, I bet," laughed " Mac." That is our 
worst trip — but it was to be something even more 
unpleasant than usual. About eleven o'clock the 
Boches started shelling the little one-street village 
with 105 shrapnel. In the midst of it a brancardier 
came running in to ask for an ambulance — three 
couches, " tres presse." Of course, I had to grin and 
bear it, but it is a hbrrid feeling to have to go out into 
a little street where shells are falling regularly — 

223 



FRIENDS OF FRANCE 

start your motor — turn — back — and run a few 
yards down the street to a foste de secours where a 
shell has just landed and another is due any moment. 

"Are your wounded ready?" I asked, as calmly as 
I could. "Owt, monsieur,'" So out I went — and was 
welcomed by two shells — one on my right and the 
other just down the street. I cranked up N^ 10, the 
brancardier jumped up by my side, and we drove to 
our destination. I decided to leave the ambulance on 
the left side of the road (the side nearer the trenches 
and therefore more protected by houses from shell- 
fire), as I thought it safer on learning that it would be 
fifteen minutes before the wounded were ready; and 
luckily for me, for a shell soon landed on the other 
side of the road where I usually leave the ambulance. 
My wounded men were now ready; it appeared that 
one of the shrapnel shells had entered a window and 
exploded inside a room where seven soldiers, resting 
after a hard day's work in the trenches, were sleeping 
— with the appalling result of four dead and three 
terribly wounded. As I felt my way to the hospital 
along that pitch-black road, I could not help wonder- 
ing why those poor fellows were chosen for the sacri- 
fice instead of us others in the telephone bureau — 
sixty yards down the street. 

However, here I am writing to you, safe and sound, 
on the little table by my bedside, with a half-burnt 
candle stuck ija a Muratti cigarette box. Outside the 
night is silent — my window is open and in the 
draught the wax has trickled down on to the box and 

224 



THE INSPECTOR'S LETTER BOX 

then to the table — unheeded — for my thoughts 
have sped far. To Gloucester days, and winter even- 
ings spent in the old brown-panelled, raftered room, 
with its pewter lustrous in the candlelight; and the 
big, cheerful fire that played with our shadows on the 
wall, while we talked or read — and were content. 
Well — that peace has gone for a while, but these 
days will likewise pass, and we are young. It has 
been good to be here in the presence of high courage 
and to have learned a little in our youth of the values 
of life and death. 

Leslie Buswell 




Cwtt<4«*4. 



The Poetry of War 

We have had much talk to-night about the proba- 
ble effect of the war upon art and literature in differ- 
ent countries, and gradually the discussion shifted 
from prophecy to history and from the abstract to the 
concrete, and narrowed down to the question as to the 
best poem the war has already produced. In France 
enough verse has been inspired by the war to fill a 
"five-foot shelf" of India-paper editions, but we all 
had finally to admit that none of us was in a position 
to choose the winner in such a vast arena. Among 
the short poems in English, some voted for Rupert 
Brooke's sonnet which begins : — 

** If I should die, think only this of me: 

That there 's some corner of a foreign field 
That is forever England." 

But nothing that any of us has seen is more in- 
spired than the verses which poured from the heart 
and mind of a young American in the Foreign Legion 
here in France. His name is Alan Seeger, and the 
poem was written in, and named from, the region in 
which his regiment was stationed. It is called " Cham- 
pagne, 1914-15," and was printed in the North Amer- 
ican Review for October, 1915. 



^m 



CHAMPAGNE, 1914-15 

In the glad revels, in the happy fetes, 

When cheeks are flushed, and glasses gilt and 
pearled 
With the sweet wine of France that concentrates 

The sunshine and the beauty of the world. 

Drink, sometimes, you whose footsteps yet may tread 
The undisturbed, delightful paths of Earth, 

To those whose blood, in pious duty shed. 

Hallows the soil where that same wine had birth. 

Here, by devoted comrades laid away. 

Along our lines they slumber where they fell. 

Beside the crater at the Ferme d' Alger 
And up the bloody slopes of La Pompelle, 

And round the city whose cathedral towers 
The enemies of Beauty dared profane. 

And in the mat of multicolored flowers 

That clothe the sunny chalk-fields of Champagne. 

Under the little crosses where they rise 
The soldier rests. Now round him undismayed 

The cannon thunders, and at night he lies 
At peace beneath the eternal fusillade. . . . 

2£r 



FRIENDS OF FRANCE 

That other generations might possess — 

From shame and menace free in years to come — 

A richer heritage of happiness. 

He marched to that heroic martyrdom. 

Esteeming less the forfeit that he paid 

Than undishonored that his flag might float 

Over the towers of liberty, he made 

His breast the bulwark and his blood the moat. 

Obscurely sacrificed, his nameless tomb 
Bare of the sculptor's art, the poet's lines. 

Summer shall flush with poppy-fields in bloom. 
And Autumn yellow with maturing vines. 

There the grape-pickers at their harvesting 
Shall lightly tread and load their wicker trays. 

Blessing his memory as they toil and sing 
In the slant sunshine of October days. 

I love to think that if my blood should be 
So privileged to sink where his has sunk, 

I shall not pass from Earth entirely, 
But when the banquet rings, when healths are 
drunk. 

And faces, that the joys of living fill. 

Glow radiant with laughter and good cheer. 

In beaming cups some spark of me shall still 
Brim toward the lips that once I held so dear. 



CHAMPAGNE, 1914-15 

So shall one, coveting no higher plane 

Than Nature clothes in color and flesh and tone. 
Even from the grave put upward to attain 

The dreams youth cherished and missed and might 
have known. 

And that strong need that strove unsatisfied 
Toward earthly beauty in all forms it wore. 

Not death itself shall utterly divide 
From the beloved shapes it thirsted for. 

Alas, how many an adept, for whose arms 
Life held delicious offerings, perished here — 

How many in the prime of all that charms, 
Crowned with all gifts that conquer and endear! 

Honor them not so much with tears and flowers. 
But you with whom the sweet fulfilment lies. 

Where in the anguish of atrocious hours 
Turned their last thoughts and closed their dying 
eyes. 

Rather, when music on bright gatherings lays 
Its tender spell, and joy is uppermost. 

Be mindful of the men they were, and raise 
Your glasses to them in one silent toast. 

Drink to them — amorous of dear Earth as well. 
They asked no tribute lovelier than this — 

And in the wine that ripened where they fell. 
Oh, frame your lips as though it were a kiss. 

Alan Seeger 




ALAN SEEGER 

SOLDIER OF THE FOkEIGN LEGIOIT 

KILLED IN ACTION 

JUL? 4, 1916 

Yet, sought they neither recompense nor praise. 

Nor to be mentioned in another breath 

Than their blue-coated comrades whose great days 

It was their pride to share, ay! share even to death. 
Nay, rather, France, to you they rendered thanks 

(Seeing they came for honor, not for gain). 
Who, opening to them your glorious ranks. 
Gave them that grand occasion to excel. 

That chance to live the life most free from stain 
And that rare privilege of dying well. 



From a •poem vyritten by him in memory of American Volunteers fallen 
for France, upon the occasion of a memorial service held before the Lafayette- 
Washington status on the Place des tltats-Unis in Paris, May SO, 1916. 



XIII 

FOUR LETTERS FROM VERDUN 

I 

In the Hilh of France, 
June 23. 1916 

Dear Mother, — 

Your two letters of May 23d and June 4th have 
both arrived in the last week, but I have been too 
busy and too sleepy to answer them. They have given 
us a very important work as well as a dangerous one, 
— to evacuate the wounded about one and a quarter 
miles from the first-line trenches, — and since we 
have been here, about a week, our little ambulances 
(holding five wounded) have carried some hundreds 
of men. We are quartered in a town about four miles 
away from the front, which the Germans take pleas- 
ure in shelling twice a day. About fifteen minutes 
ago, while we were at breakfast, they dropped two 
shells, "150's," which landed four hundred yards 
away; but I seem so used to running into danger now, 
that it hardly affects me at all. We got here a week 
ago, on Friday, and on Saturday morning I made my 
first trip to our poste de secours on a French machine. 
The first part of the drive is through the valley, 
where there is a beautiful winding river, and some 
pretty old towns. There you begin an ascent for 
about two miles on a road which is lined with French 

232 




SAUCISSE ABOVE VERDUN 



FOUR LETTERS FROM VERDUN 

batteries and quite open to the view of the Germans, 
who have a large observation balloon only a mile 
or two away. Consequently the road is fired over 
all the time, so you feel that a passing shell might 
at any moment fall on you. Just this morning, 
about four o*clock, three shells went over my ma- 
chine and broke in a field near by. When one reaches 
the top of the ascent, there is a piece of road, very 
rough and covered with debris of all kinds — dead 
horses, old carts and wheels, guns, and confusion 
everywhere. This road leads to an old fort where 
our wounded are, and on this road the German fire is 
even worse. Well, this first morning, just before we 
arrived, the Germans began a bombardment which 
lasted five hours. The shells landed all around us, but 
we finally got in safely. It was altogether the most 
awful experience I have ever been through. We dis- 
covered a small tunnel holding three of our cars, and 
here I waited five hours without any breakfast, hear-i 
ing the roar of the shells — they make a noise like 
a loud, prolonged whittle — and then hearing the 
French batteries answer with a more awful roar, be- 
cause nearer. To add to the interest, two or three gas 
shells exploded near us, which made our eyes water. 
Luckily we had our gas masks with us, but we had 
got it in our faces before we could put them on. 
Meanwhile, the wounded were being carried in from 
the first-line trenches by the stretcher-bearers who, 
by the way, are some of the real heroes of the war. 
The time came for us to go out into the open in order 

233 



FRIENDS OF FRANCE 

to let the other cars get in after us. As you may imag- 
ine, it was an awful moment for us; however, we 
went along slowly but surely, and j&nally we got down 
the hill, away from all the noise and danger. It was 
worth while, though, for we were carrying many 
wounded with us. For a week we have been doing this 
work and are all still alive; and we have to our credit 
about seven hundred wounded men. The French 
are, of course, very appreciative of our work. I wish 
that I could describe things more fully, but I am too 
much "all in." I am well in spite of the excitement, 
but tired to death of the horrors, the smells, and the 
sights of war. We will be here but a few days more 
and after this will be given an easier place for a while; 
so you need not worry after receiving this. I am glad 
to have gotten a taste of real war, though, so as to 
know what it really means. 

Your affectionate son, 

Malbone 
(Birckhead) 



234 



FOUR LETTERS FROM VERDUN 
II 

August 9, 1916 

Dear K., — 

It is quiet and cool to-night; the moon is shining 
just as it will with you a few hours later, for it is now 
9.15 here, and only 3.15 with you. Last night it was 
quiet and I slept from half -past nine till seven! The 
night before, however, the guns roared all night long 
and increased in vigor up to six o'clock in the morn- 
ing. We were waked up a little after five o'clock by 
the scream of a shell which hit somewhere back of 
us. The house shook amid the roar, as it always does 
whenever there is much firing. 

We are quartered in one of the farmhouses belong- 
ing to the chateau, which is now a hospital. You re- 
member, no doubt, the French farmhouses: a blank 
wall on the roadside with only an entrance to the 
courtyard, a dark kitchen, a few bedrooms, and a 
loft with a few sheds out back. The loft is divided 
into two parts. We sleep up in the loft on stretchers 
propped up from the floor by boxes or our little army 
trunks. Some don't prop up their stretchers, but I 
find it better to elevate mine, as the rats run all over 
the floor and incidentally over you if your stretcher 
rests on the floor. The fleas seem more numerous near 
the floor, and there are spiders, too. I 've been pretty 
well "bit up," but yesterday I soaked my blankets 
in petrol and hung them on the line in the courtyard 
for an airing, so I think I 've left the vermin behind. 
I also sprayed my clothes, especially my underwear, 

235 



FRIENDS OF FRANCE 

with petrol, which does n't make much for comfort, 
except in so far as the animals are baffled. We are bet- 
ter off than the other Sections, though, for our house 
is very commodious, and we have a river to swim in 
every day. The river is quite near by, so it is no ef- 
fort to bathe. 

We carry the wounded from the chateau to the 
trains. Some trips are about seventeen kilometers one 
way, and others are more. As the roads are well used, 
they are rather bumpy, so you have to go very slowly. 
You do not dash at full speed with your wounded! 
It is slow work, for, in addition to the necessity for 
making the trip as easy as possible for the blesses, you 
have to dodge in and out among the transports, which 
usually fill up the roads. There is a steady stream go- 
ing and coming, horses, mules, and auto-trucks. You 
never saw so many of either one of the above. Thou- 
sands of each kind. You well know the dust on 
the roads. We have to drive ahead regardless of the 
clouds of dust, so you can imagine what sights we 
are when we get back to our farmhouse. Scarecrows, 
each one. The dust is powdery and comes off easily, 
however, so you can get comfortable in a short time. 
There is no lagging or loafing; you blow your whistle 
and the driver of what's ahead of you gives you six 
inches of road and you squeeze through and take a 
chance that the nigh mule on the team coming the 
other way does n't kick. 

The hlessSs are a quiet lot, especially after you give 
them cigarettes. I always pass around the cigarettes 

236 




I 







FOUR LETTERS FROM VERDUN 

before starting, for then I'm sure those en derriere 
will be quiet. Every now and then you have a "hum- 
mingbird," that is, a blessS who is so hurt that the 
least jar pains him and he moans or yells. You can't 
help him any, so you just have to put up with it. How- 
ever, I don't like "hummingbirds," for you feel that 
you hit more bumps. 

I went to a show down in town where some of 
the soldiers are en repos. It was wonderful, for there, 
right within range of the Boche guns, the soldiers 
were giving one of the best musical shows I have ever 
seen. Among the actors — men who only a little while 
before were in the trenches — were professional musi- 
cians, singers, and actors. It was not amateurish — 
in fact, it was highly professional. The theatre was 
fitted up more or less like the stage at the Hasty 
Pudding Club at Harvard (an amateurish back, how- 
ever), but everything else savored of the real Pari- 
sian touch. Among the audience were generals, colo- 
nels, under-officers, poilus, and five of us (we were 
invited, inasmuch as we had lent some of our uniforms 
for the actors) . The soldiers who could not get in 
thronged the courtyard and cheered after every song 
or orchestra piece. The orchestra was made up of 
everything in a city orchestra, including a leader with 
a baton. You see each regiment is bound to have 
professional men in it and they get up the shows. (I 
saw my cap walk out on the stage on a fellow with a 
little head, so it did n't even rest on his ears, but 
rather on his nose). On the whole, it was one of the 

237 



FRIENDS OF FRANCE 

greatest and most impressive sights I've seen, and on 
top of it all, there was a continuous firing in the near 
distance. Imagine it, if you can! 

We have a cook, a chambermaid, — one of the 
poilus who is quartered here, too, and who earns a few 
sous on the side by serving us, — also a French lieu- 
tenant who is really the head of the Section, a mare" 
chat de logis, and a few other French retainers. They 
sleep in the same loft with us. Every night they chat- 
ter very late and kid each other about the fish they 
caught or did not catch during the day in the river. 
They laugh and giggle at each other just like kids. 
They are awfully amusing. All the poilus who are 
en repos fish, although there are only minnows around 
here. I asked several to-day how many they caught, 
and they said they were only fishing to pass the time. 
I guess it's a great diversion, for they all do it. They 
all bathe, too, every day. We go in with them, the 
mules and the horses; probably somewhere else the 
Boches are bathing in the same river. Such is life, but 
we are extremely lucky to get a chance to wash at all 
and I'm afraid when we move from here, for we shall 
soon be moved to poste duty, we shan't have the com- 
forts such as are found here. 

I mentioned poste work in the last paragraph. 

There are two kinds of work for ambulances — 
evacuating and poste de secours work. The former 
consists in removing the blessSs from the back hospitals 
to points where they are put on the trains. The 
poste de secours work is going up to the point where 

2m. 



FOUR LETTERS FROM VERDUN 

the blessSs are dragged from the trenches and carry- 
ing them back to the above-mentioned hospitals. Of 
course, the poste work is the liveliest and the most 
dangerous. We shall be sent up to do that within a 
week or so, as they shift about: several months of 
poste work and then several months of evacuating. 
The Section had done its turn at poste de secours 
before I joined it; it has also been evacuating from 
here quite a while, so we shall no doubt be sent out 
nearer the front pretty soon. That's what we are 
here for. We are not a great distance from the lines 
now; in fact, shells have come over us and landed right 
across the road, but when we move, it will mean the 
most dangerous of work, for the roads are full of shell 
holes, no doubt, and wild shells get loose now and then. 
I'll write you again soon, but now I'm going to bed, 
— that is, roll up in my blankets on my stretcher, 
for there is an early call for to-morrow morning. 
Early call means getting your machine over to the 
chateau at six o'clock, all ready for the day's work. 
It's great fun and I am awfully glad to be here. 
Moreover, there is a satisfaction to realize that you 
are helping. The French are very appreciative, from 
the poilu up to the highest officers. Oh! I forgot to 
mention, in describing our billet, that flies and mos- 
quitos are abundant. We all have mosquito nets 
which we put over our heads in the evening, making 
us all look like the proverbial huckleberry pie on the 
railroad restaurant counter. The poilus around us 
have adopted our methods, and you see them sitting 

2^5 



FRIENDS OF FRANCE 

around looking for all the world like Arabs in the 
distance. Before closing I might mention also that 
besides fishing to pass the time, the poilus en repos 
catch foxes, hedgehogs, rabbits, and other animals 
and train them. There are two of the cutest little 
foxes I have ever seen over across the road in one of 
the courtyards. They play around and are just like 
little collies until we show up; then they scamper 
and get behind a box or a stove and blink at us. 
We tried to buy one of them, but the owners are too 
fond of them to let them go. 
Well, good-night and best love to you and G. 

As ever, 
Chick 
(Charles Baird) 

Have not seen George Hollister yet, as he is in 
Section 3. Maybe I '11 run across him later. 



%m 



FOUR LETTERS FROM VERDUN 
ni 

S. S. AmSricaine No. 3, 
July 3, 1916 

Dear 

I never meant to let so long a time go by without 
more than a postal or so. We are back, far back, of 
the lines in repose with the tattered remains of our 
division. I have a lot that is worth while writing 
about, but make allowances if it comes disconnect- 
edly. We have just come back from two weeks at 
Verdun! Our cars are battered and broken beyond 
a year's ordinary service. Barber, though seriously 
wounded, is on the road to recovery. No one else 
was more than scratched. 

The Section we relieved told us what to expect. 
It began strong. The first night the fellows worked 
through a gas attack. I was off duty and missed out 
on one disagreeable experience. One has to breathe 
through a little bag affair packed with layers of 
cloth and chemicals. The eyes are also protected 
with tight-fitting isinglass, which moists over and 
makes driving difficult. The road was not shelled that 
night, so it might have been worse. The second night 
was my go. We rolled all night from the poste de 
secours back to the first sorting-station. The poste 
was in a little town with the Germans on three sides 
of the road and all in full view, which made daylight 
going impossible. The day work was evacuating from 
sorting-stations to field hospitals. There our work 
stopped. English and French sections worked from 



FRIENDS OF FRANCE 

there back to the base hospitals. The road ran out 
through fields and a little stretch of woods, French 
batteries situated on both sides the entire way; that 
is what drew the fire. Four trips between dusk and 
dawn were the most possible. The noise of French 
fire was terrifying until we learned to distinguish it 
from the German arrivSes, It is important to know the 
difference, and one soon learns. The depart is a sharp 
bark and then the whistle diminishing. The arrivees 
come in with a slower, increasing whistle and ripping 
crash. In noise alone it is more than disagreeable. 
The poste de secours was an ahri in a cellar of four 
walls. Of the town there was scarcely a wall standing: 
marmites had done their work well. The road was an 
open space between, scalloped and scooped like the 
moon in miniature. We would drive up, crawling in 
and out of these holes, turn around, get our load and 
go. When the place was shelled, we had time to hear 
them coming and dive under our cars. The drive back 
was harrowing. One was sure to go a little too fast on 
a stretch of road that felt smooth and then pitch into 
a hole, all but breaking every spring on the body. I'll 
never forget the screams of the wounded as they got 
rocked about inside. At times a stretcher would break 
and we would have to go on as it was. Of course we 
would have to drive in darkness, and passing convois 
of artillery at a full gallop going in opposite directions 
on either side. Each night a bit more of tool box or 
mud guard would be taken off. Often I found myself 
in a wedge where I had to back and go forward until 

242 



FOUR LETTERS FROM VERDUN 

a little hole was found to skip through, and then 
make a dash for it and take a chance. One night there 
was a thunderstorm with vivid lightning and pitch 
darkness. The flash of guns and of lightning were as 
one and the noise terrific. That night, too, the road 
was crowded with ammunition wagons. But worst of 
all, it was under shell fire in three places. Traffic be- 
came demoralized because of the dead horses and 
wrecked wagons smashed up by shrapnel. All our 
cars were held up in parts of the road. There is no 
feeling of more utter helplessness than being jammed 
in between cannon and caissons in a road under shell 
fire. No one was hit that night. Two of the men had 
to run ahead and cut loose dead horses in order to get 
through. . . . 

Barber's car was hit the next night. He had stopped 
and was crouching by it, which probably saved him. 
Subsequently the Germans corrected their range on 
the road by the sight of the car, and on our last run it 
was level with the ground. The bodies of the wounded 
he was carrying mingled with the wreckage. That 
night was the climax of danger. Things eased off a bit 
after, but the strain was telling and our driving was 
not so skillful. Next to the last night I collided with 
a huge ravitaillement wagon coming at full gallop on 
the wrong side of the road. The entire front of the 
car went into bow knots, but I landed clear in safety. 
This occurred under the lee of a cliff, so we went in 
search with wrecking car the next day. After twenty 
hours she was running again, shaky on her wheels, but 

243 



FRIENDS OF FI8ANCE 

strong in engine. She goes to Paris soon for shop 
repairs. Poor old Alice! A wrecked car in so short a 
time. Patched with string and wire and straps, she 
looks battle-scarred to a degree. Her real battle 
souvenirs are five shrapnel balls embedded in the 
roof and sides. I don't believe in collecting souvenirs, 
but these I could not help! 

There were humorous incidents; that is, humorous 
when we look back on them, safely in camp. One 
goes as follows: Three cars running out to the poste 
about thirty yards apart. The whistle of shells and a 
great increase in speed in the cars. (Somehow speed 
seems to give the feeling of more security.) Road 
getting too hot — shells falling between the cars as 
they run. First car stopped short and driver jumped 
about thirty feet into a trench by the roadside. 
Landed in six inches of water and stayed. Car No. 2 
stopped, but not short enough to prevent smashing 
into tail-board of No. 1. Driver made jump and 
splash No. 2 into trench. Ditto for Car No. 3 (me). 
Whistle and bang of shell, crash of hitting cars, and 
splash of falling men in water. Here we remained until 
the "storm blew over." 

I am mighty glad we are through and out of it all. 
Whatever action we go into again, it cannot be harder 
or more dangerous than what we have been through. 
That will be impossible. I don't know yet whether I 
am glad or not to have had such an experience. It 
was all so gigantic and terrifying. It was war in its 
worst butchery. We all of us lost weight, but health 

£44 



FOUR LETTERS FROM VERDUN 

and morale are O.K., and we are ready for more work 
after our repose. When you read this, remember I am 
out of it and in less dangerous parts, . . . 

The French military is giving half of us forty-eight 
hours permission for the Fourth of July. We are going 
for a two days' spree in Paris! 

My debits to date are one letter from mother of the 
7th; one shirt, chocolate, and corduroy suit. 

I would rather you did n*t pass this letter around 
much. It is too hurried and slapdash, and I may have 
quite different opinions after we have calmed down a 
bit. 

Edward 
(Tinkham) 

P.S. Barber was given the MSdaille militaire — 
most coveted of military honors. 



M5 



FRIENDS OF FRANCE 

IV 

France, June SO 

Dearest ''folks at homej^^ abroad — and Grandma! 

Four nights ago I had a pretty narrow escape. I can 
mention no names here, but this is the gist of the 
story : — 

I was driving my car with three wounded soldiers 
in it along a road that was being shelled. Well, I got 
in the midst of a pretty hot shower, so I stopped my 
car and got under it. A few minutes later I supposed 
it was blowing over, so I got out. I had no sooner done 
so than I heard one of those big obus coming, the loud- 
est I had ever heard. I ran to the front of my car, 
crouching down in front of the radiator. When it 
burst it struck the car. My three soldiers were killed. 
I was hurt only a little. I am not disfigured in any 
way. It just tore my side and legs a bit. 

The French treated me wonderfully. I succeeded 
in getting the next American Ambulance driven by 
Wheeler (a great boy) who took me to the City of 

where our poste is. Here I was given first 

aid, and the Medecin chef personally conducted me 
in an American Ambulance, in the middle of the 
night, to a very good hospital. They say I have the 
best doctor in France — in Paris. 

Well, I woke up the next day in a bed, and have 
been recuperating ever since. Every one is wonderful 
to me. General Petain, second to Joffre, has stopped 
in to shake hands with me, and many are my con- 

246 



FOUR LETTERS FROM VERDUN 

gratulations, too, for above my bed hangs the MS- 
daille militaire, the greatest honor the French can 
give any one. Really, I am proud, although I don't 
deserve it any more than the rest. Please excuse my 
egotism. 

Mr. Hill and my French lieutenant come to see me 
every day, and some of the boys also. They joke 
around here, saying that I am getting so well that they 
have lost interest in me and must move on. In three 
or four days I go to the hospital at Neuilly where I 
can have every comfort. 

Of course you won't worry about me. I will be just 
as good as new soon, and really this is true. 

The Germans peppered the life out of my car. No 
one goes over the road in daylight, but the fellows 
brought me back the next day a handful of bullets 
taken from it, and said they could get me a bushel 
more if I desired them. 

A , I got your letter; it was great. The first 

one that I have received from some one who has 
heard from me. 

F , thanks for the $ . I am sorry I have 

made you so much trouble about the prescription. It 
is just my shiftlessness. 

For three days I was not allowed to eat or drink and 
could hardly move in bed. My spirits were high, too. 
I will try to write bette? and take more pains. 

Good-bye, 

William 



U7 



FRIENDS OF FRANCE 

Neuilly-sur-Seine, 
July 10, 1916 

Well, I am here at Neuilly! This is a wonderful 
hospital and they do treat you great ! I am just get- 
ting back to normal and have no temperature. The 
doctors here are the best in the world . . . 

Now I want to ask your advice or permission. When 
I get well, in two or three weeks, how would you like 
it for me to spend a week resting in some suburb of 
London? I would just take a room there and live and 
sleep. I have read so much about life in England 
that I am dying to try it and I think it would do me 
good. I don't think the cost would be heavy and I 
will consider it a go if you cable me a loan for the 
trip. 

When my wounds heal up, which they are fast doing, 
I will be just as good as new, no scars at all. I am 
very happy here and hope every day that you are as 
happy and never worry about me. I surely have given 
you a lot of trouble and anxiety, and hope that I will 
do always as you say after this. The best of my ex- 
perience is that I have never once regretted this great 
trip, and I think I have done a small part of a great 
work, and my Medaille shows what the French think of 
my services. I will throw aside modesty for the mo- 
ment. It is given for discipline and valor, and by the 
way, what amuses me, there is an annual pension of 
one hundred francs. I have been treated wonderfully 
since I had it given me. The French keep me in 
pfficial quarters and give me officer's grub, which is 

248 



FOUR LETTERS FROM VERDUN 

about one hundred per cent better than the soldiers'. 
I am having some wonderful experiences. . , . 

I am still continuing my diary, and I assure you it 
is full of thrills. I am the only ambulance boy who has 
been given a MSdaille, and I am told that Mr. Bals- 
ley, an American aviator, is the only other American 
who has it. Well, enough of this conceit. 

Excuse writing; written in great haste in bed. 

Please cable me some money if you will permit 
me to go to England for a week. Perhaps I can get 
to go with me. 

Lots of love to all; my best to Grandma. 

William 

[The following paragraphs are from a letter written 
to the family of William Barber by his Section leader, 
Lovering Hill.] 

. . . William was wounded on the night of the 27th 
of June while bringing back wounded from the poste 
de secours. 

It was a dangerous road, and seeing some shelling on 
the road ahead of him, he had stopped to await its 
cessation. He was about to start up again when a 
shell fell a few feet away, many small fragments of 
which struck him, one large one striking him a glanc- 
ing blow on the side. He ran back a few yards and 
was picked up by one of his comrades who brought 
him to the dressing-station at Verdun, where I was 
at the time. There his wounds were dressed; one of 
them proved to be serious. 

249 



FRIENDS OF FRANCE 

I got in touch at once with the Medecin division-' 
naire, who is the chief of the Service de SaniS of our 
Division, who immediately took charge of the case 
and personally accompanied your son in the am- 
bulance which brought him to Vadelaincourt — 
the nearest surgical ambulance, twenty-five kilo- 
meters back. There he awakened a very well-known 
Parisian physician and surgeon, Dr. Lucas Cham- 
pioniere, who operated at once. 

As soon as I could leave my work, at six o'clock the 
next morning, accompanied by our French lieuten- 
ant, I went to Vadelaincourt to see William, who 
was just coming to from the anaesthetic. The doctor 
told me it was serious because the fragment had cut 
into the peritoneum, but without injuring the in- 
testine — the danger being in the chances of peri- 
tonitis setting in; that he could tell me in forty-eight 
hours whether there would be the danger of this com- 
plication. On your son's insistence, and on my own 
judgment, I decided not to cause you needless an- 
guish by cabling until his case should have been 
judged. On the third day I was told he was out of 
danger, so I advised William to cable you, and I cabled 
his brother myself. 

One of his other wounds consisted in a small splin- 
ter that lodged in his lung, but this was not considered 
by the doctor to be the cause of any concern, the only 
wound which might have dangerous consequences 
being the abdominal one. 

The Section was moved away shortly after, so that 
250 



FOUR LETTERS FROM VERDUN 

July 1st was the last day on which I saw him, but I 
have telephoned for news daily, and have been al- 
ways told he was doing well. 

Before closing I wish to tell you how courage- 
ous he has been throughout, not only after he was 
wounded, when he showed the most splendid pluck, 
but before, when he was doing really dangerous work 
with enthusiasm and coolness. The French authori- 
ties have recognized this in awarding him the MSdaille 
militaire, the highest medal for military valor in 
France. 




TRIBUTES AND CITATIONS 

ArmSea de fB$l 



G. Q. G., le 2lt Mai 191$ 



Etai-Major Giniral 

Neuillt-sur-Sbink 

Le General Commandant en Chef a Monsieur Piatt 
Andrew, Inspecteur General du Service aux Ar- 
mies de rhdpital Americain de Neuilly 

Je vous remercie vivement pour votre offre 
d'une nouvelle section automobile, qui va porter k 
cinq le nombre de vos formations sanitaires aux 
armees. 

Je tiens k vous exprimer ma satisfaction de Toeuvre 
accomplie par vos volontaires qui n'ont cesse, en 
toutes circonstances, de taire preuve de courage, 
d'endurance et de d6vouement. 

Les bons r6sultats donnes par votre organisation 
sont dus, pour une bonne part, h votre activite et 
votre zele inlassables. 

Agreez, Monsieur, Texpression de ma considera- 
tion tres distingu6e. 



252 



TRIBUTES AND CITATIONS 

ITBANSLATIONJ 

Armies of the East y-, , ^^ , 
Grand Headquarters, 2Jt May, 1916 

General Staff 

The General Commanding in Chief to Monsieur Piatt Andrew, In- 
spector General of the Field Service of the American Hospital of 
Neuilly. 

I thank you warmly for your offer of an additional automobile sec- 
tion, which will increase to five the number of your sanitary units with 
the army. 

I desire to express to you my satisfaction with the work performed 
by your volunteers who have unremittingly, under all conditions, given 
proof of their courage, endurance, and devotion. 

The excellent results achieved by your units are due in large measure 
to your own untiring activity and zeal. 

Accept, Monsieur, the assurance of my most distinguished considera- 
tion. 



253 



FRIENDS OF FRANCE 

Ministere de la Guerre 



Sous-Secretariat d'Etat du -r* ' -r^ 

S^^ke de Sana MUitair. Kepotuque FraNCAISB 

i^''* Division Teehn. 



Paris, le SI octobre 1915 

Monsieur y — 

Mon attention a ete appel6e sur les services 
eminents rendus au Service de Sant6 par la Section 
Sanitaire Automobile Am^ricaine N° 2, que vous 
dirigez, et particulierement sur le z^le et le courage 
avec lequel elle a porte secours a nos blesses, dans la 
region de Pont-a-Mousson. 

J'ai appris avec plaisir que votre formation dans 
son ensemble, et la plupart de ses membres a titre 
particulier, avaient ete cites k I'ordre du jour de la 
^3^me Division de Reserve. 

Je me fais un devoir d*adresser a la Section Sani- 
taire Automobile Americaine N** 2, les sinc^res re- 
merciements du Departement de la Guerre. 

(Signe) Justin Godard 

Monsieur Salisbury 
Chef de la Section Sanitaire Automobile iV** 2 

PONT-A-MoUSSON 

[TRANSLATION] 

War Department 

Office of the Under Secretary R^^blique Feakcaise 

MiLitary Sanitation Service 

First Technical Division 



Paris, 31 October, 1916 
Monsieur, — ■ 

My attention has been called to the eminent services rendered 
to the Sanitation Service by American Automobile Sanitary Section 

254 



TRIBUTES AND CITATIONS 

No. 2, which is under your direction, and especially to the zeal and courage 
with which it carried succour to our wounded in the Pont-a-Mousson 
district. 

I have learned with pleasure that yoiu* unit as a whole, and the 
greater number of its members, have been mentioned in the orders of the 
day of the 73rd Reserve Division. 

I make it my duty to extend to American Automobile Sanitary Sec- 
tion No. 2, the sincere gratitude of the War Department. 

{Signed) Jwstin Godabd 

Monsieur Salisbury 
Commanding Automobile Sanitary Section No. 2. 

PONIVA-MOUSSON 



^5B 



FRIENDS OF FRANCE 



Ministere 
de la Guerre 

Cabinet RilPUBUQUE FRANgAISE 

du 
Sous-SecrStaire d'l^tai 



Paris, le 2$ mai 1916 

Monsieur, — 

Je connais et apprecie la part tres active que 
vous et vos amis avez pris aux propagandes f aites en 
Am^rique, depuis le debut de la guerre, en f aveur de la 
cause du Droit que defendent la France et ses Allies. 
Je sais, en particulier, vos ejfforts pour aboutir a la 
manifestation de la sympathiede vos concitoyens pour 
nos vaillants soldats, par une cooperation effective 
et pratique a la tache du Service de Sante frangais. 
Aussi je tiens a vous exprimer, d'une fagon speciale, 
toute la satisfaction que donnent a mon Departement, 
depuis leur entree en service aux Armees, les Sections 
sanitaires automobiles de I'Ambulance americaine. 

Gr4ce non seulement a leur excellent organisation 
materielle, mais encore et surtout au devouement 
courageux du personnel d'elite que nous a envoye 
votre Pays pour les diriger, ces Sections contribuent, 
de la fagon la plus heureuse, a attenuer les souff ranees 
de nos blesses, en abregeant les heures si douloureuses 
qui s'ecoulent entre le moment oil le soldat tombe sur 
le champ de bataille et celui ou il pent recevoir, dans 
des conditions convenables, les soins qu'exige son etat. 

Veuillez done agreer, pour vous, Monsieur, et 
transmettre a vos amis d'Amerique Fassurance de ma 
prof onde gratitude, pour Toeuvre que vous avez si par- 

25t> 



TRIBUTES AND CITATIONS 

f aitement congue et realisee, et dont vos compatriotes 
continuent d'assurer Tentretien en personnel et en 
materiel, avec autant de vaillance que de generosite. 
Agreez, Monsieur, Tassurance de ma consideration 
distinguee. 

(Signe) Justin Godabd 

Monsieur Piatt-Andbew 



War 

Department 



[TBANSLATIONJ 



Q^g RlfiPUBLIQUE FbANCAISB 

of the 
Under-Secretary 

Paris, 23 May, 1916. 
Monsieur, — 

1 know and value highly the very active part that you arid your 
friends have taken in the propaganda carried on in America, ever since 
the outbreak of war, in favour of the cause of Right, which France and 
her Allies are defending. 1 know, in particular, of your efforts to arrive 
at a manifestation of the sympathy of your fellow citizens for our gallant 
soldiers, by effective and practical cooperation in the work of the French 
Sanitary Service. Therefore I am desirous of expressing to you, with 
special emphasis, the perfect satisfaction which the Automobile Sani- 
tary Sections of the American Ambulance havfe given my department 
since they first entered the service of our armies. 

Thanks not only to their excellent material organization, but beyond 
even that, to the courageous devotion of the picked personnel which 
your country has sent us to lead them, these Sections are contributing 
in the most gratifying fashion toward lessening the sufferings of our 
wounded by shortening the agonizing hours that elapse between the 
time when the soldier falls on the battlefield and that when he is able to 
receive, under suitable conditions, the care that his condition demands. 

Pray, therefore. Monsieur, accept for yourselves and convey to your 
friends in America the assurance of my profound gratitude for the work 
which you have planned and carried on so perfectly, and of which your 
compatriots continue to ensure the support, both in personnel and in sup- 
plies, with no less gallantry than generosity. 

Accept, Monsieur, the assurance of my distinguished consideration. 

(Signed) Justin Godaed 

Monsieur Piatt Andrew 

257 



FRIENDS OF FRANCE 

Chambre 
des Diputit BepUBUQUE FrANQAISE 

Paris, le 6 adut 1915 

Monsieur le Directeur, — 

J*ai rhonneur de vous remercier, au nom de la 
Commission d'Hygiene publique, des soins eclaires et 
devours que FAmbulance Americaine prodigue a nos 
blesses de Pont-a-Mousson. 

Dans les tristes heures que nous vivons, il nous est 
particuli^rement doux de savoir que des mains amies 
s'empressent autour de ceux des notres qui si coura- 
geusement versent leur sang pour la defence de notre 
Pays. 

Veuillez agreer, Monsieur le Directeur, I'assurance 
de ma haute consideration. 

(Signe) Le President 
Dr.h. DoizT Dr. H. Doizy 

Maison de Convalescence 
Sarcelles (Seine et Oise) 

rrRANSLATION] 

Chamber 
of Deputies RjSpubuque Fbancaise 



PariSf 6 August, 1915 
Monsieur le Directeur, — 

I have the honor to thank you, in the name of the Commission 
of Public Health, for the enlightened and devoted attention which the 
American Ambulance is lavishing upon our wounded at Pont-a-Mousson. 
In the distressing hours that we are passing through, it is particularly 
sweet to us to know that friendly hands are zealously employed about 
those of our troops who are shedding their blood so fearlessly in defence 
of our country. 

Pray accept, M(Misieur le Directeur, the assurance of my distinguished 
consideration. 

(Signed) The President 

Db. H. Doirr Db. H. DoizT 

Convalescents^ Home 
SabceliiES (Seine et Oise) 

258 



TRIBUTES AND CITATIONS 



DHachement d'ArmSe 
de Bdgique 

t^tat-Major 



Au Q. 0. le 6 mai 1915 
pf Bureau 

Le General Putz, Commandant le Detachement 

d*Armee de Belgique, 
a Monsieur Andrew, Inspecteur du Service des 

Ambulances de THdpital Americain 

Monsieur, — 

Mon attention a et6 appelee sur les precieux 
services rendus au detachement d'Armee de Belgique 
par la Section Sanitaire Automobile Americaine qui 
lui est attachee. 

Cette Section a du, en effet, concurremment avec la 
Section Anglaise, assurer Tevacuation d'Elverdinghe 
sur Poperinghe de nombreux militaires blesses au 
cours des r6cents combats. Malgre le bombardement 
d'Elverdinghe, des routes qui y accident, et de I'Am- 
bulance m^me, cette Evacuation s'est effectue nuit et 
jour, sans interruption, et dans d'excellentes condi- 
tions de promptitude et de r6gularite. 

Je ne saurais trop louer le courage et le devoue- 
ment dont a fait preuve le personnel de la Section et 
je vous serais oblige de vouloir bien lui transmettre 
mes felicitations et mes remerciements pour Teffort 
physique considerable qu'il a si g6nereusement con- 
senti, et les signales services qu'il a rendus. 

Veuillez agr6er. Monsieur, Texpression de ma con- 
sideration tres distinguee. 

(Signe) Putz 

U9 



FRIENDS OF FRANCE 

[TRANSLATION] 



Detachment of the Army 
of Belgium 



Staff 

Headquarters, 5 May, 1915. 



Isi Bureau 

General Putz, 

Commanding the Detachment of the Army of Belgium, 
to Monsiem- Andrew, 

Inspector of the Ambulance Service of the American Hospital. 

Monsieur, — 

My attention has been called to the valuable services rendered 
to this army by the American Automobile Sanitary Section, which is 
attached to it. 

This Section did, in fact, in conjunction with the English Section, safe- 
guard the removal from Elverdinghe to Poperinghe of numerous soldiers 
wounded in recent battles. Despite the bombardment of Elverdinghe, 
of the roads leading to it, and of the Ambulance itself, this removal was 
proceeded with, night and day, without interruption, and with particular 
efficiency as to speed and regularity. 

I cannot possibly praise too highly the courage and devotion mani- 
fested by the members of the Section, and I should be obliged to you if 
you would kindly transmit to them my congratulations and my thanks 
for the great physical ejffort which they so generously consented to make» 
and for the notable services they have rendered. 

Pray accept. Monsieur, the assurance of my most distinguished con- 
sideration. 

{Signed) Putz 



TRIBUTES AND CITATIONS 

EXTRAIT DE L'ORDRE D'fiTAPES 
N° 661 POUR LA JOURNEE DU 
6 JUIN 1916 

Felicitations: 

Le General D. E. S. adresse ses felicitations 
au Personnel militaire et aux infirmieres, de I'H. O. E. 
20, pour le devouement et le sang-froid dont il a fait 
preuve le T^ Juin, pendant le bombardement de 
Bar-le-Duc par les avions allemands, au cours du- 
quel les OflSciers et Hommes de troupe dont les noms 
suivent se sont fait plus partieulierement remarquer: 

Les Militaires de la Section Sanitaire Americaine 
N° 2, qui resterent tons a decouvert pendant la 
duree du bombardement et se porterent, a chaque 
bombe qui eclatait, au secours des victimes, sans 
souci du danger dont ils etaient menaces. 

EXTRACT FROM ORDRE D'fiTAPES, 
NO. 661. FOR 6 JUNE, 1916 

Congratulations : 

General D. E. S. offers his congratulations to the military per- 
sonnel and nurses of H. O. E. 20 on the devotion and sang-froid which 
they displayed on June 1, during the bombardment of Bar-le-Duc by Ger- 
man air-ships, in the course of which the oflScers and men whose names 
follow particularly distinguished themselves: 

The military members of American Sanitary Section No. 2, all of whom 
remained exposed throughout the bombardment, and at every explosion 
of a bomb, hastened to the assistance of the victims, regardless of the 
danger with which they were threatened. 



261 



FRIENDS OF FRANCE 



Au Q. G., le 20 juillet 1915 



1^^' ArmSe 
75^'*'* Divisiou 

Eiai'Major 

V^ Bureau 

Ordre de la Division N** 485 

Le General Commandant la Division cite a Tordre: 
"Section Sanitaire Automobile Americaine 

"Composee de volontaires, amis de notre 
pays, n'a cesse de se faire remarquer par Tentrain, le 
courage et le zele de tons ses membres qui, insouciants 
du danger, se sont employes sans repit a secourir 
nos blesses, dont ils se sont acquis la reconnaissance 
et Tamitie." 

Le General Lebocq 
Commandant la 73^°^® Division 
(Signe) Lebocq 



First Armp 
73rd Division 

Staff 

First Bureau 



[TEANSLATIONl 

Headquarters, SO July, 1915 



Divisional Order No. 485 

The General commanding the Division "mentions" in general orders: 
" American Automobile Sanitary Section No. 2 

" Composed of volunteers, friends of our country, has constantly 
attracted favorable notice by the enthusiasm, the courage, and the zeal 
of all its members, who, regardless of danger, have been employed, with- 
out respite, in rescuing our wounded, whose gratitude and affection they 
have won." 

General Lebocq 
Gjmmanding the 73rd Division 
(Signed) Lebocq 



TRIBUTES AND CITATIONS 

66^""* Division 

6 novemhre 1916 

Le G6iieral Serret, Commandant la 66^°^^ Divi- 
sion dinfanterie, cite a TOrdre de la Division: — 

"La Section Sanitaire Americaine N° 3 et son 
Chef Mr. Lovering Hill 

"*A de nouveau affirme son inlassable devoue- 
ment en assurant avec une froide cranerie et dans des 
circonstances tres correctes pendant les journees 
et les nuits des 15, 16 et 17 octobre 1915, dans une 
region difficilement practicable et en partie battue 
par le feu de Tennemi, I'evacuation de nombreux 
blesses.'" 

ITRANSLATIONJ 

Seventh Army 
66th Division 

November 6, 1915 

General Serret Commanding the 66th Infantry Division, "mentions** 
in general orders: — 

" The American Sanitary Section No. S, and its commander, Mr. 
Lovering Hill 

" * Has demonstrated anew its miwearying devotion, by safeguard- 
ing with cool audacity and in perfect order, during the days and nights 
of October 15, 16, and 17, 1915, in a district in which such movements 
were very dangerous, and which was partly within range of the enemy's 
guns, the removal of numerous wounded.' " 



263 



FRIENDS OF FRANCE 

[TELEGRAM] 

Nancy, ^ juillei 1916 

Le Pref et de Nancy a Ambulance Americaine, Pont-a- 
Mousson 

En ce jour ou vous celebrez fete votre inde- 
pendance nationale, a Theure meme ou dans des rudes 
combats la France defend son independance contre 
un ennemi dont la folic de domination menace la 
liberte de tons les peuples et dont les procedes bar- 
bares menacent les conquetes morales de la civilisa- 
tion, vous adresse expression profondes sympathies 
frangaises pour votre grande et genereuse nation, et 
je saisis cette occasion vous presenter nouvelles assur- 
ances gratitude emue populations lorraines pour 
devouement admirable de tons les membres Ambu- 
lance Americaine de Pont-a-Mousson. 

MiRMAN 

ITRANSLATION] 

Nancy, U July, 1915 
Prefect of Nancy to American Ambulance, Pont-^-Mousson 

On this day when you celebrate anniversary your national inde- 
pendence, at the very hour when in hard-fought battles France defends 
her independence against a foe whose mad lust for world-domination 
threatens liberty of all nations, and whose savage deeds threaten moral 
conquests of civilization, I extend you profound French a£Fection for 
your great and generous nation, and seize opportunity to ofiFer renewed 
assurances heartfelt gratitude people of Lorraine, for admirable devo- 
tion of all members American Ambulance, Pont-^-Mousson. 

MlBMAN 



264 



TRIBUTES AND CITATIONS 



66**^ Division d' Infant Q. G.. le 21 Janvier 1916 

Midecin Divisionnaire 



Le Medecin Principal de 2^™^ Classe Georges, Medecin 
Divisionnaire de la 66^°^® Division d'Infanterie, 
a Monsieur le Lieutenant Commandant la Section 
Sanitaire Americaine N^ 3 

J'ai pu voir k Toeuvre journellement depuis 
sept mois la Section Sanitaire Automobile Ameri- 
caine N*^ 3 qui est a la disposition de la 66^"^® Di- 
vision depuis pres d'un an. EUe a eu a operer 
constamment dans une region dont les routes sont 
particulierement diflficiles. EUe a eu a supporter 
k maintes reprises un travail absolument intensif de 
jour et de nuit, dd a diverses chaudes actions mili- 
taires ayant entrain^ en quelques jours un chiffre 
eleve d'evacuations. 

En toutes circonstances, tous et chacun ont fait 
leur devoir, — et plus que leur devoir, — avec un 
parfait mepris personnel du danger, avec une sim- 
plicite touchante, avec un imperturbable sang-froid 
n'ayant d'egal que Tempressement foncierement gene- 
reux des secours inlassablement apportes. 

La mort d'un conducteur tue a son volant, la 
blessure grave d'un autre conducteur contractee au 
cours de son service, temoignent encore bien plus que 
les citations a I'ordre du jour decernees a la Section et 
a un nombre eleve de ses membres, de la faqon dont 
elle a compris ses devoirs et tenu a les remplir. 

265 



^ FRIENDS OF FRANCE 

Au moment ou cette Section, si bien dirigee par 
vous et par le lieutenant Lovering Hill, quitte la 
Division pour une autre destination, j'ai a coeur de 
lui adresser, — au nom de tons nos blesses et ma- 
lades, — mes remerciments les plus vif s pour la f agon 
veritablement admirable dont elle s'est acquittee de 
son service. 

(Signe) Georges 



Seventh Army 



rrEANSLATIONl 



66t h Infantry Divi sion Headguariers, January SI, 1916 

Divisional Medical Officer 

Georges, Principal Physician of the Second Class, Divisional Medical 

Officer of the 66th Infantry Division, 
to Monsieur le Lieutenant commanding American Sanitary Section 

No. 3. 

I have had the opportunity daily for seven months to see at work 
the American Automobile Sanitary Section No. 3, which has been at 
the disposal of the 66th Division for nearly a year past. The Section has 
had to operate constantly in a district where the roads are particularly 
bad. It has had on many occasions to work day and night under the 
greatest possible strain, due to the fact that successive fierce actions have 
necessitated a large number of removals in a few days. 

Under all conditions one and all have done their duty — and more than 
their duty — with an absolute disregard of danger, with a touching 
simplicity, with an imperturbable sang-froid equalled only by the abso- 
lutely single-hearted zeal with which they have unwearyingly given their 
assistance. 

The death of one driver, killed at his post, the severe wound of an- 
other driver received in the course of his service, bear even more elo- 
quent witness than the citations in the orders of the day awarded to the 
Section and to a large number of its members, to the way in which they 
have understood their duties and striven to fulfil them. 

At the moment when this Section, so ably led by you and by Lieu- 
tenant Lovering Hill is about to leave the Division for another field of 
operation, I have it at heart to offer to you all, in the name of all our 
wounded and sick, my warmest thanks for the truly admirable way in 
which you have done your work. 

(Signed) Georges 

266 



TRIBUTES AND CITATIONS 

ISl^me Division 

S. P. 76 

Le Medecin Aide-Major de 1^'^ Classe Rocher, Mede- 

cin-Chef du G. B. D. 
a Monsieur le Lieutenant Commandant la S. S. A. A. 

N°7. 

J'ai I'honneur de vous f aire connaitre que pend- 
ant toute la duree du dernier bombardement dans le 
secteur de Vic-Fontenoy, la Section Sanitaire Automo- 
bile Americaine N° 1 a assure le service souvent peril- 
leux de I'evacuation des blesses avec sang-froid, zele 
et devouement. Tons vos conducteurs sont dignes 
d'eloge, et je signale particuli^rement a votre atten- 
tion le conducteur Woolverton, qui, malgre le bom- 
bardement tr^s rapproche de sa voiture, a continue 
son service avec la plus belle assurance. 

(Sign6) Dr. Rocher 



ITRANSLATION] 
121st Division 



8. P. 76 



Rocher, Assistant Physician of the 1st Class, Physician-in-Chief of the 

G. B. D. 
to Monsieur the Lieutenant commanding the S. S. A. A. No. 7. 

I have the honor to inform you that throughout the last bom- 
bardment in the sector of Vic-Fontenoy, the American Automobile 
Sanitary Section No. 1 safeguarded the often very hazardous process 
of removing the wounded, with coolness, zeal, and devotion. All your 
drivers are deserving of praise, and I call particularly to your attention 
Driver Woolverton, who, notwithstanding the bombardment very near 
his car, continued his service with the most splendid self-possession. 

(Signed) Dr. Rocher 



267 



FRIENDS OF FRANCE 

Direction de VArrihe 



Service Automobile 

VitteU le 8 juillet 1916 

Inspection Permanente 

des 
RSgions de I* Est 

Le Capitaine de Montravel, Inspecteur permanent 
des Services Automobiles des Regions de Test a 
Monsieur Piatt Andrew, Inspecteur General des 
Ambulances Americaines a Neuilly. 

Cher Monsieur et ami, — 

Vous savez combien je suis fier d*avoir ete 
le premier a apprecier les vaillants jeunes gens que 
votre genereux pays nous envoyait, d*avoir pu ob- 
tenir I'envoi de votre premiere section sur la terre 
d* Alsace, et enfin de conserver comme un titre de 
gloire, le nom de "Pere des Sections Americaines" 
que me donnerent spontanement ces nobles jeunes 
hommes le jour oil ils apprirent leur depart pour 
TAlsace. 

L'amitie sincere de leur infatigable Inspecteur 
General m'est aussi bien precieuse. 

Mes occupations m'ont empeche malheureuse- 
ment de revoir vos courageuses sections qui ont si 
bien su prouver par leurs actes que j'avais raison 
lorsque, des le debut, je me suis porte garant pour 
elles. D'autre part, vos travaux absorbants vous 
ont oblige vous-meme a espacer vos bonnes visites. 
Mais voila qu'aujourd'hui votre aimable envoi re- 
nouvelle le souvenir de notre union etroite et en 
resserre encore les liens. 



TRIBUTES AND CITATIONS 

Merci done de tout coeur, cher Monsieur et ami; 
souvenez-vous qu'a Vittel vous avez un arret obliga- 
toire a chacun de vos passages, et que cet arret pro- 
eurera une grande joie a 

Votre entrerement devoue 

(Signe) DE MONTRAVEL 

ITRANSLATIONl 
Headquarters of the Rear 

Automobile Service t^-.. i « r . -«-/. 
Vittel, 8 July, 1916 

Permanent Inspection 
Office of the Eastern District 

Captain de Montravel, Permanent Inspector of Automobile Service in 
the Eastern District to Monsieur Piatt Andrew, Inspector-General of 
the American Ambulances at Neuilly. 

Dear Monsieur and friend, — 

. . . You know how proud I am of having been the first to appre- 
ciate the gallant young men whom your noble-hearted country sent to us, 
of having succeeded in having your first section sent to Alsatian territory, 
and, lastly, of bearing, as a symbol of honour, the name of Father of the 
American Sections, which was spontaneously bestowed upon me by those 
noble young men on the day when they learned that they were to go 
to Alsace. 

The sincere friendship of their indefatigable Inspector-General is also 
very precious to me. 

My duties have unhappily prevented me from visiting again your 
fearless sections, which have proved so conclusively by their deeds that 
I was right when, at the very beginning, I became their sponsor. On 
the other hand, your own absorbing tasks have compelled you to make 
your welcome visits very rare. . . . But to-day your pleasant message 
revivifies the memory of our close connection, and tightens its bonds 
afresh. 

Thanks, with all my heart, dear Monsieur and friend; remember that 
you are bound to break your journey at Vittel whenever you pass 
through, and that such break will give great pleasure to 

Faithfully yours 

(Signed) de Moxtrayel 



m9 



FRIENDS OF FRANCE 

Groupement D. E. 
Etat-Major 
ler Bureau ^« ^ ^* '^ ^"^ Novembre 1916 



N*" 6369 BJl 



s.c.N'^ 6611 ORDRE GENERAL N° 189 

Le General Commandant le Groupement D. E. cite k 
Tordre du Corps d'Armee: — 
Section Sanitaire Americaine N° 1 
"Sous le commandement du lieutenant Robert de 
Kersauson de Pennendreff et de I'officier Ame- 
ricain Herbert Townsend, en Aotit et Septembre 
1916, a assure Tevacuation des blesses de trois di- 
visions successivement dans un seeteur partieuliere- 
ment dangereux; a demande comme une faveur de 
conserver ce service oh. officiers et conducteurs ont 
fait preuve du plus brilliant courage et du plus com- 
plet d6vouement." 

(Signe) Le General Commandant le Groupement D. E. 

Mangin. 

Qroup D. E. ITRANSLATIONl 



lat Bureau Headquarters, 1 November, 1916 



N0.6369B/1 



S. C. No. 6611 GENERAL ORDER NO. 189 

The general commanding Group D. E. "mentions" in the orders of the 
Army Corps: — 

American Sanitary Section No. 1 

"Under the command of Lieutenant Robert de Kersauson de 
Pennendreff and of the American oflScer Herbert Townsend, in August 
and September, 1916, effected the removal of the wounded of three 
divisions successively in a particularly dangerous sector; has asked as 
a favor to be permitted to maintain this service, in which oiEcers and 
drivers have given proof of the most brilliant courage and the most com- 
plete devotion." 

(Signed) General commanding Group D. £. Mangin. 

270 



TRIBUTES AND CITATIONS 

Sim0 ArmSe 



Direction du Service 

de SanU du 

Gfoupement E 

EXTRAIT D'ORDRE N^ 78 

En execution des prescriptions reglementaires le 
Docteur du Service de Sante du 6°^® Corps 
d'Armee, cite a I'ordre du Service de Sante du 
6°*®Corpsd'Armee: — 

La Section Sanitaire Automobile Amebicaine 
N^ 1 

"Sous la direction du Lieutenant Robert 
de Kersauson de Pennendreff, et des Officiers Ameri- 
cains, Herbert Townsend et Victor White, la Section 
Sanitaire Americaine N° 1, composee entierement de 
volontaires, a assure remarquablement le service 
quotidien des evacuations en allant chercher les 
blesses le plus loin possible, malgre un bombarde- 
ment parfois violent. 

S'est particulierement distinguee le 11 juillet 1916 
en traversant a plusieurs reprises une nappe de gaz 
toxiques sous un feu intense sans aucun repit pendant 
32 heures pour emmener aux ambulances les in- 
toxiques." 

(Signe) TouBERT 

Q. G, le ^6 juillet 1916 
Le Direcieur du Service de SanU 



^71 



FRIENDS OF FRANCE 

ITBANSLATIONl 



Sd Army 



Headquarters of 

the Sanitary Service 

of Group E 

EXTRACT FROM ORDER NO. 78 

In fulfillment of regulations the Physician of the Sanitary Service of the 
6th Army Corps "mentions" in orders of the day of the 6th Army 
Corps: — 

American Automobile Sanitary Section No. 1 

"Under the durection of Lieutenant Robert de Kersauson de 
Pennendreff, and of the American officers, Herbert Townsend and Victor 
White, American Sanitary Section No. 1, composed entirely of volun- 
teers, has been wonderfully efficient in the daily service of removing the 
wounded, going very long distances to fetch them, despite a bombard- 
ment sometimes of great intensity. 

It especially distinguished itself on July 11, 1916, by passing through 
a sheet of poisonous gas again and again, without respite, under a sus- 
tained fire, for thirty-two hours, bringing the men prostrated by the gas 
to the ambulances." 

(Signed) Toubert 

Headquarters, S6 July, 1916 

Chief of the Sanitary Service 



272 



TRIBCTES AND CITATIONS 

lerC.A.C, 



du Q. G., le 19 juillet 1916 

Service de Sante 



No 5161 

Le Medecin Principal de 1®^® Classe Lasnet, Direc- 
teur du Service de Sante du 1^^ Corps d'Armee 
Colonial, au Lieutenant de Kersauson, Com- 
mandant la S. S. A. U. 1. 

Au moment ou la S. S. A. U. 1 est appelee a 
suivre une autre destination, le Directeur du Service 
de Sante adresse au Lieutenant de Kersauson et a 
tout le personnel de la Section ses chaleureuses felici- 
tations pour le zele, le courage et I'activite inlassables 
dont tons ont fait preuve pendant leur sejour sur le 
secteur du 1^' C. A. C. 

Les Troupes Coloniales ont su apprecier le devoue- 
ment des volontaires Americains et elles leur en 
gardent une vive reconnaissance. C'est avec un pro- 
fond regret qu'elles les ont vu partir et elles n'oubli- 
eront pas de longtemps les conducteurs hardis, habiles 
et empresses qui venaient enlever leurs blesses jusque 
dans les postes de secours les plus avanc6s. 

(Signe) Lasnet 



£73 



FRIENDS OF FRANCE 

ITBANSLATIONJ 



1st C. A. C. 



Headquarters 

of the Eeadquarterg, 19 July, 1916 

Sanitary Service 

No. 6161 

The Physician-in-Chief of the First Class Lasnet, Superintendent of th« 
Sanitary Service of the First Colonial Army Corps, to Lieutenant db 
Kebsauson, Commanding S. S. A. U. 1. 

At the moment when the American Sanitary Section U. 1 is called 
upon to proceed to another field of action, the Superintendent of the 
Sanitary Service expresses to Lieutenant de Kebsauson and the whole 
personnel of the Section his warm congratulations upon the unwearying 
zeal, courage, and activity of which one and all have given abundant 
proof during their stay in the sector of the First C. A. C. 

The Colonial troops have not failed to appreciate at its true value the 
devotion of the American volunteers, and are profoundly grateful to 
them therefor. It was with deep regret that they learned of their depart- 
ure, and they will not soon forget the fearless, skilful, and enthusiastic 
drivers who went even to the most advanced postes de secours to collect 
their wounded. 

(Signed) Lasnbt 



274 



TRIBUTES AND CITATIONS 

EXTRAIT D'ORDRE N° 80 

En execution des prescriptions reglementaires le Di- 
recteur du Service de Sant6 du 6^ Corps d'Armee, 
cite a rOrdre du Service de Sante du 6® Corps 
d'Armee 

La Section Sanitaire Automobile Americaine 
N° 8 pour le motif suivant: — 

"Sous la direction du Lieutenant Paroissien, 
Robert Charles, et du Commandant Adjoint Ameri- 
caine Mason, Austin Blake, la Section Sanitaire 
Americaine N*' 8, composee entierement de volon- 
taires, a assure remarquablement le service quoti- 
dien des evacuations en allant chercher le plus loin 
possible les blesses, malgre un bombardement par- 
fois violent. 

" S'est particulierement distinguee le 23 juin, en tra- 
versant a plusieurs reprises la nappe de gaz toxiques 
sous un feu intense sans aucun repit pendant plu- 
sieurs heures pour emmener au plus vite aux ambu- 
lances les intoxiques." 

Q. G. le Ji. Aadt 1916 
P. 0. le Directeur du Service de SanU 



275 



FRIENDS OF FRANCE 
EXTRACT FROM ORDER NO. 80 



In carrying out the prescribed regulations the Director of the Sanitary 
Service of the 6th Army Corps "mentions" in the orders of the day 
of that service 

The American Automobile Sanitaby Section No. 8, for the reason 
following: — 

•' Under the direction of Lieutenant Robert Charles Paroissien and 
of the American Deputy-Commandant Austin Blake Mason, the Ameri- 
can Sanitary Section No. 8, composed entirely of volunteers, has been 
wonderfully efficient in the daily service of removing the wounded, 
going very long distances to fetch them, despite a bombardment some- 
times of great intensity. 

" It especially distinguished itself on June 23, by passing through the 
sheet of poisonous gas again and again, without respite, under a sus- 
tained fire, for many hours, bringing the men prostrated by the gas to 
the ambulances as speedily as possible. 

Headquarters, ^ August, 1916 
P.O. The Director of the Sanitary Service 



276 



THE NEW HEADQUARTERS 

As a result of theextension of the Field Service of the American 
Ambulance, the headquarters of the field ambulance sections 
have been transferred from the Lycee Pasteur, Neuilly-sut-Seine, 
to 21 rue Raynouard, Paris (XVI), and are installed in the beau- 
tiful premises generously placed at their disposal for the duration 
of the war by the Hottinguer family. 

This house at Passy has, since the beginning of the last cen- 
tury, been the property of the family of Benjamin Delessert, the 
great philosopher, who founded the Caisse d'^pargne in Paris. 
On the extensive neighboring land belonging to him he estab- 
lished a refinery where beetroot sugar was made for the first time. 
The Emperor Napoleon, as an appreciation of this discovery, 
created him a Baron of the Empire and Chevalier of the Legion 
d'Honneur. 

There exist in the park at Passy three ferruginous springs, 
the waters of which were famous even in the seventeenth cen- 
tury. Madame de Sevigne speaks of them in a letter to her daugh- 
ter, dated 1676. Later a thermal establishment was organized. 
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who lived on the edge of the park, speaks 
in his "Confessions'* of taking the waters. Voltaire was also an 
assiduous visitor. From 1777 to 1785 Benjamin Franklin often 
came to take the cure, and walked in the shade of these wooded 
acres. It is even said that he made here his first experiment with a 
lightning-rod. More recently, history recounts that in this same 
spot Zola wrote his book "Pages d'Amour." The house was occu- 
pied for a long time by the Bartholdi family and was frequently 
visited by the great sculptor of the Statue of Liberty, given to 
the United States by France. A description of the place is given 
in a book on "Old Paris" by Georges Cain, and also in a book 
called "Paris," by Andre Hallays. The property belongs at the 
present day to the Hottinguer family and their descendants, heirs 
of the Delesserts. 




SOME OF THE MEN OF THE AMERICAN AMBULANCE 

FIELD SERVICE AT THEIR HEADQUARTERS 

AT 21 RUE RAYNOUARD, PARIS 




THE "CKOIX DE GUERRE' 



Roger M, l. Balbiani 
William M. Barber 
Edward O. Bartlett 
Robert Bowmajt 
Leslie Buswell 
Joshua G B. Campbell 
A. Graham Carey 
John W. Clark 
Edmund J. Curley 
Benjamin F. Dawson 
Stanley Dell 
David B. Douglass 
Luke C. Doyle 
Brooke Leonard Edwards 
POWEL Fenton 
Giles B. Francklyn 
Stephen Galatti 
J. Halcott Glover 
H. Dudley Hale 
Richard N. Hall 
Sigurd Hansen 
LovERiNG Hill 
Lawrence W. Hitt 
George M. Hollister 
Everett Jackson 
Edward J. Kelley 
Owen Kenan 
Philip C. Lewis 



Walter Lovell 
James R. McConnell 
Douglas MacMonagle 
William T. Martin 
Joseph Mellen 
Francis D. Ogilvie 
Waldo Peirce 
Thomas W. Potter 
Tracy J. Putnam 
Beverly Rantoul 
DuRANT Rice 
Carroll Riggs 
George Roeder 
Edward Van D. Salisbury 
RoswELL Sanders 
Bernard M. P. Schroder 
Jabies M. Sponagle 
Henry M. Suck ley 
John C. Taylor 
Edward I. Tixkham 
Herbert P. Townsend 
Donald M. Walden 
J. Marquand Walker 
Walter H. Wheeler 
Victor G. White 
Harold B Willis 
williari h. woolverton 



-^y^ 



CITATION AU 36eme CORPS D'ARMEE 

BALBIANI, Roger M. L., Conducteur, puis chef 
d'une section sanitaire etrangere : — 

*'A deploye depuis plusieurs mois un grand de- 
vouement; s'est particulierement distingue du 22 
Avril 1915 lors de I'attaque allemande au moyen 
de gazs asphyxiants et pendant les bombardements 
de Dunkerque." 

"MENTIONED" IN THE 36th ARMY CORPS 

BALBIANI, Roger M. L., Driver, afterwards in command of a foreign 
Sanitary Section: For many months past has displayed the most de- 
voted courage; distinguished himself particularly on April 22, 1915, 
at the time of the German attack with asphyxiating gas, and during 
the bombardments of Dunkirk. 



CITATION SERVICE DE SANTfi 

64eme DIVISION 

BARTLETT, Edward, Conducteur volontaire de la 
S. S. Americaine No 4 : — 

"S'est particuKerement distingue par son sang- 
froid, son courage et son devouement en concou- 
rant, du 18 au 30 Juin 1916, aux evacuations des 
blesses des postes de secours, dans un secteur battu 
par I'artillerie ennemie." 

"MENTIONED" IN ORDERS OF THE SANITARY 
SERVICE, 64th DIVISION 

BARTLETT, Edward, Volunteer Driver of American S. S. No 4: Distin- 
guished himself particularly by his coolness, courage, and devotion, 
while assisting, between the 18th and 30th of June, 1916, in the removal 
of wounded from postes de secours, in a sector swept by the enemy 
artillery. 



280 



CITATION SERVICE DE SANTE 

73eme DIVISION 

BUSWELL, Leslie, de la S. S. A. A., Conducteur tres 
consciencieux, tres devoue et tres courageux. 

Se presentant pour toutes les missions dange- 
reuses. 

Conduite remarquable pendant le bombarde- 
ment du 22 Juillet. 

"MENTIONED" IN ORDERS OF THE SANITARY SERVICE 
OF THE 73d DIVISION 

BUSWELL, Leslie, of the S. S. A. A. A most conscientious, faithful, 
and fearless driver. Offers himself for all dangerous duties. Note- 
worthy conduct during the bombardment of July 22. 



CITATION ler CORPS D'ARMEE COLONIALE 
SERVICE DE SANTE 

CAMPBELL, Joshua, Conducteur. Engage volon- 
taire a la S. S. A. U. 1 depuis Janvier 1915: — 

"A fait preuve en toutes circonstances d'un 
calme imperturbable et d'un absolu devouement. 
A assure le service des evacuations depuis le poste 
de secours de I'Eclusier sous plusieurs bombarde- 
ments dans des conditions de rapidite parfaites et 
avec un extreme souci du confort des blesses. 

"MENTIONED" IN THE SANITARY SERVICE, 
FIRST COLONIAL ARMY CORPS 

CAMPBELL, Joshua, Driver. Volunteer in the S. S. A. U. 1 since Jan- 
uary, 1915 : Has given proof, on all occasions, of imperturbable coolness 
and undivided devotion to duty. Looked after the matter of removals 
from the dressing-station at I'Eclusier, during several bombardments, 
with the greatest possible speed, and with the utmost care for the 
comfort of the wounded. 



282 



I 



CITATION A LA 66eme DIVISION 

CAREY, Graham, sujet Americain, domicile a Cam- 
bridge (Massachusetts) Etats-Unis, sous-chef de 
la Section Sanitaire Automobile Americaine N^ 3: 
"A affirme son courage et son devouement en 
allant spontanement recueillir, sous les obus, les 
blesses d'un corps de troupe, voisin de son poste 
d' attache, et en assurant leur evacuation immedi- 
ate." 

"MENTIONED" IN THE 66th DIVISION 

CAREY, Graham, an American, living at Cambridge, Massachusetts, 
second in command of the American Automobile Sanitary Section 
No. 3: Manifested his courage and his devotion to duty by going 
out spontaneously under a storm of shells, to collect the wounded of 
a detachment stationed near the post to which he was attached, and 
assuring their immediate removal to the rear. 



CITATION A LA 129eme DIVISION 

CLARK, John, volontaire Americain de la Section 
Sanitaire Americaine N^ 3 : — 

"A donne depuis huit mois I'exemple d'une fide- 
lite entiere a son service. Pendant la periode du 22 
Juin au 2 Juillet a montre une intrepidite parfaite 
et a fait allegrement plus que son devoir dans des 
circonstances dangereuses." 

"MENTIONED" IN THE 129th DIVISION 

CLARK, John, American Volunteer of American Sanitary Section No. 3: 
In the past eight months has set an example of absolute fidelity to 
duty. During the period from 22 June to 2 July, displayed perfect 
intrepidity, and readily did more than his duty in circumstances of 
great peril. 



284 



CITATION A LA 66eme DIVISION 

CURLEY, E. J., de la Section Sanitaire Automobile 
Americaine N^ 3, sujet Americain: — 

"A de nouveau fait preuve d'un devouement 
digne des plus grands eloges en assurant nuit et 
jour, pendant quinze jours, avec un parfait mepris 
du danger, I'evacuation de nombreux blesses sur 
une route de montagne constamment battue par 
les projectiles ennemis." 

"MENTIONED" IN THE 66th DIVISION 

CURLEY, E. J., of American Automobile Sanitary Section No. 3, an 
American: Has again given proof of a devotion deserving of the high- 
est praise, by safeguarding night and day, for a fortnight, with utter 
contempt of danger, the removal of many wounded over a mountain 
road constantly swept by the enemy's fire. 



CITATION SERVICE DE SANTE 

129eme DIVISION 

Le Volontaire Americain DAWSON, Benjamin, de la 
Section Sanitaire Americaine N^ 3 : — 

"A fait preuve a la Section Sanitaire Americaine 
No 3 d'un entier devouement en particulier au 
cours des mission dangereuses effectuees sous le feu 
de I'ennemi en Decembre-Janvier 1916 et pendant 
la periode du 22 Juin au 2 Juillet 1916." 

"MENTIONED" IN THE SANITARY SERVICE, 
129th DIVISION 

The American Volunteer, Benjamin DAWSON, of American Sanitary 
Section No. 3: Has displayed in the work of American Sanitary Section 
No. 3 absolute devotion to duty, especially in the execution of certain 
dangerous commissions under the enemy's fire in December, 1915- 
January, 1916, and during the period from 22 June to 2 July, 1916. 



286 



CITATION A LA 66eme DIVISION 

DOUGLASS, David B., de la Section Sanitaire Au- 
tomobile Americaine N^ 3, sujet Amerieain: "A 
de nouveau fait preuve d'un devouement digne des 
plus grands eloges en assurant nuit et jour, pendant 
quinze jours, avec un parfait mepris du danger, 
I'evacuation de nombreux blesses sur une route de 
montagne constamment battue par les projectiles 
ennemis." 

"MENTIONED" IN THE 66th DIVISION 

DOUGLASS, David B., of American Automobile Sanitary Section No. 
3, an American: Has again given proof of a devotion deserving of 
the highest praise, by safeguarding night and day, for a fortnight, 
with utter contempt of danger, the removal of many wounded over a 
mountain road swept by the enemy's fire. 



CITATION A LA 66eme DIVISION 

Le Conducteur DOYLE, Luke C, de la Section Sani- 
taire Automobile Americaine N^ 3, sujet Ameri- 
eain: "A de nouveau fait preuve d'un devouement 
digne des plus grands eloges en assurant nuit et 
jour, pendant 15 jours, avec un parfait mepris du 
danger, I'evacuation de nombreux blesses sur une 
route de montagne constamment battue par les 
projectiles ennemis." 

"MENTIONED" IN THE 66th DIVISION 

DOYLE, Luke C, Driver, of American Automobile Sanitary Section 
No. 3, an American: Has again given proof of a devotion deserving 
of the highest praise, by safeguarding night and day, for a fortnight, 
with utter contempt of danger, the removal of many wounded over a 
mountain road swept by the enemy's fire. 



288 



CITATION A LA l^Teme DIVISION 

EDWARDS, Brooke Leonard, Conducteur a la 
Section Sanitaire Automobile Americaine No 1: 
"A montre le plus grande courage et un sang-froid 
remarquable en allant chercher des blesses dans un 
poste avanee. Sa voiture ayant ete atteinte par 
plusieurs eclats d'obus en traversant une zone vio- 
lemment bombardee, s'est arrete pour reparer et a 
rempli sa mission jusqu'au bout en ramenant des 
blesses hors de la zone dangereuse." ^ 

"MENTIONED" IN THE 127th DIVISION 

EDWARDS, Brooke Leonard, Driver, in American Automobile Sanitary 
Section No. 1 : Displayed the greatest bravery and noteworthy coolness 
in going to take up the wounded in an advanced position. His car hav- 
ing been hit by several fragments of shell as he crossed a zone then 
under a heavy bombardment, he stopped to repair it and performed 
his mission to the end, bringing back a number of wounded men from 
the dangerous zone. 



CITATION A LA 66eme DIVISION 

Le Conducteur FENTON, Powel, de la Section Sani- 
taire Automobile Americaine N^ 3, sujet Ameri- 
cain : — 

"A de nouveau fait preuve d'un devouement 
digne des plus grands eloges en assurant nuit et 
jour, pendant quinze jours, avec un parfait mepris 
du danger, I'evacuation de nombreux blesses sur 
une route de montagne constamment battue par 
les projectiles ennemis." 

"MENTIONED" IN THE 66th DIVISION 

FENTON, Powel, Driver, of American Automobile Sanitary Section 
No. 3, an American: Has again given proof of a devotion deserving 
of the highest praise, by safeguarding night and day, for a fortnight, 
with utter contempt of danger, the removal of many wounded over 
a mountain road swept by the enemy's fire. 

1 This citation was approved and signed by General Joffre, Gen- 
eral Nivelle, commanding the 2d Army, the General commanding 
" Groupement E," the General commanding the 127th Division, the 
Medecin Divisionnaire of the 127th Division. 

290 



CITATION SERVICE DE SANTE 66enie 
DIVISION 

GALATTI, Stephen, sujet Americain, Conducteur a 
la Section Sanitaire Automobile Americaine N^ 3: 
"A pendant quinze jours assure nuit et jour, sur 
une route de montagne difficile, et constamment 
battue par les projectiles ennemis, Tevacuation de 
nombreux blesses, avec un zele et un devouement 
dignes de tons les eloges." 

"MENTIONED," SANITARY SERVICE, 66th DIVISION 

GALATTI, Stephen, Driver, of American Automobile Sanitary Section 
No. 3, an American subject: On a bad mountain road, constantly 
swept by the enemy's fire, safeguarded night and day, for a fortnight, 
the removal of many wounded, with a zeal and devotion deserving 
of the highest praise. 



CITATION SERVICE DE SANTfi 73eme 
DIVISION 

GLOVER, Halcott, sous-chef de Section a la Section 
Sanitaire Automobile Americaine No 2: 

S'est toujours distingue par son esprit de 
devoir, son devouement, son calme absolu dans 
le danger et ses qualites d'organisateur. Conduite 
remarquable lors du bombardement du 22 Juillet. 
Toujours a son poste les jours d'attaque. 

"MENTIONED" — SANITARY SERVICE OF THE 73rd 
DIVISION 

GLOVER, Halcott, second in command of American Automobile Sani- 
tary Section No. 2: Has constantly distinguished himself by his sense 
of duty, his devotion, his perfect coolness in danger, and his talent as 
an organizer. Noteworthy conduct at the time of the bombardment 
of July 22. Always at his post on days of assault. 

292 



LE mEdecin divisionnaire, docteur 

GEORGES, DE LA 66eme DIVISION, CITE 
A L'ORDRE DE LA DIVISION: 

HALL, Richard, de la Section Sanitaire Americaine 
No 3. 

Le Bon Samaritain qu'etait Richard Hall avait 
pris la decision de voyager beau coup de concert 
avec nous, sur notre route, pour tendre une main 
inlassablement secourable a ceux de nos compa- 
triotes militaires que les hostilites actuelles au- 
raient plonge dans le malheur. II I'a fait depuis de 
longs mois avec la constante tenacite que vous 
savez. 

Sur cette route un projectile ennemi I'a tue. Je 
salue bien bas sa depouille en lui disant, a lui et a 
ses emules en devouement, les membres de la Sec- 
tion Sanitaire Americaine N^ 3, mon sentiment de 
profonde et entiere admiration au nom du Service 
de Sante de la Q6^^^ Division. 

Par ordre du General commandant la 66^™^ 
Division, j'epingle a ce cercueil la Croix de Guerre 
Frangaise avec citation a I'ordre de la Division. 
26 Decembre 1915. 

THE DIVISIONAL SURGEON-IN-CHIEF, OF THE 66th DIVI- 
SION, DR. GEORGES, MENTIONS IN THE DIVISIONAL 
ORDER OF THE DAY: 

HALL, Richard, of the American Sanitary Section No. 3. The good 
Samaritan, Richard Hall, had determined to travel often with us, 
on our regular road, in order to extend an untiringly helping hand to 
those of our military compatriots upon whom the present hostilities 
had brought misfortune. He did this for many long months with the 
tenacious persistence that you know of. 

On that road a German shell killed him. Reverently I salute his 
mortal remains, expressing to him and to his rivals in devotion to the 
cause, the members of American Sanitary Section, No. 3, my senti- 
ment of profound and unstinted admiration, in behalf of the Sani- 
tary Service of the 66th Division. 

By order of the General commanding the 66th Division, I pin to this 
coffin the French Croix de Guerre, together with this mention in the 
divisional order of the day. 

December 26, 1915. 

294 



CITATION A LA 66eme DIVISION 

HALE, Dudley, sujet Americain, domicilie a New 
York, fitats-Unis, Conducteur de la Section Sani- 
taire Automobile Americaine N^ 3 : 

"A affirme son courage et son devouement en 
allant spontanement recueillir, sous les obus, les 
blesses d'un corps de troupe voisin de son poste 
d' attache, et en assurant leur evacuation immedi- 
ate." 

"MENTIONED" IN THE 66th DIVISION 

HALE, Dudley, an American, living at New York, United States, 
Driver, of American Automobile Sanitary Section No. 3: Demon- 
strated his courage and his devotion to duty by going out, of his own 
motion, under shell-fire, to pick up the wounded of a force near his 
station, and ensuring their immediate removal. 



CITATION SERVICE DE SANTE, 

64eme DIVISION 

HANSEN, Sigurd, Conducteur volontaire de la S. S. 
Americaine N^ 4 : — 

"S'est particulierement distingue par son sang- 
froid, son courage, et son devouement en concou- 
rant, du 18 au 30 Juin 1916, aux evacuations des 
blesses des postes de secours, dans un secteur battu 
par I'artillerie ennemie." 

"MENTIONED" IN ORDERS OF THE SANITARY SERVICE, 
64th DIVISION 

HANSEN, Sigurd, Volunteer Driver of American S. S. 4: Distinguished 
himself particularly by his coolness, courage, and devotion, while 
assisting, between the ISth and 30th of June, 1916, in the removal of 
wounded from postes de secours, in a sector swept by the enemy artillery. 



296 



CITATION A LA 66eme DIVISION 

HILL, Levering, Chef de la Section Sanitaire Ameri- 
caine N^ 3 : 

"A de nouveau affirme son inlassable devoue- 
ment en assurant avec une froide cranerie et dans 
les conditions tres correctes pendant les journees 
et les nuits des 15, 16 et 17 Octobre 1915, dans une 
region difficilement practicable et en partie bat- 
tue par le feu I'ennemi, I'evacuation de nombreux 
blesses." 

"MENTIONED" IN THE 66th DIVISION 

HILL, Lovering, in command of American Sanitary Section No. 3: 
Has demonstrated anew his untiring devotion to duty by safeguard- 
ing, with cool audacity and in perfect order, during the days and 
nights of October 15, 16, 17, 1915, in a district where such move- 
ments were very difficult and which was partly within range of the 
enemy's guns, the removal of numerous wounded. 



CITATION A LA GGeme DIVISION 

Le Lieutenant HILL, Lovering, Commandant la 
Section Sanitaire Americaine N^ 3, sujet ameri- 
cain: 

" A de nouveau affirme son courage, son devoue- 
ment et son esprit d'organisation en faisant assurer 
et assurant lui-meme, nuit et jour, pendant quinze 
jours, avec un parfait mepris du danger, Fevacua- 
tion de nombreux blesses sur une route de mon- 
tagne constamment battue par les projectiles 
ennemis." 

"MENTIONED" IN THE 66th DIVISION 

HILL, Lovering, Lieutenant Commanding American Sanitary Section 
No. 3, an American subject: Has demonstrated anew his courage, 
devotion to duty, and talent for organization by superintending and 
taking an active part in safeguarding night and day, for a fortnight, 
with utter contempt of danger, the removal of many wounded, over 
a mountain road constantly swept by the enemy's guns. 

298 




CITATION A LA 2eme ARMEE 

HILL, Levering, de la Section Sanitaire Americaine 
No 3. 

"Delegue de Fhopital Americain de Neuilly a la 
Section Sanitaire Americaine N^ 3, a montre une 
fois de plus, au service de la 129^ Division, pendant 
les evacuations difficiles et dangereuses du 22 Juin 
au 2 Juillet, les plus belles qualites d'un chef, 
I'oubli de lui-meme, un entier devouement a son 
service et a ses volontaires." 



"MENTIONED" IN THE 2d ARMY 

HILL, Lovering, of American Sanitary Section No. 3: Ordered from the 
American hospital at Neuilly to American Sanitary Section No. 3, 
has shown once more, in the service of the 129th Division, during the 
dangerous and difficult "evacuations" of 22 June to 2 July, the finest 
qualities of leadership — ■ forgetf ulness of self, and absolute devotion 
to his duties and to his volunteers. 

299 



CITATION SERVICE DE SANTfi, 

129eme DIVISION 

Le Volontaire Americain HITT, Lawrence, de la 
Section Sanitaire Americaine No 3 : — 

" S'est toujours distingue par son zele et son de- 
vouement et particulierement du 22 Juin au 2 Juillet 
1916 au cours de I'evacuation des blesses de la 
Division effectuee on depit de bombardements con- 
stants et violents de la route et des postes." 

"MENTIONED" IN ORDERS OF THE SANITARY SERVICE. 
129th DIVISION 

The American Volunteer HITT, Lawrence, of American Sanitary Section 
No. 3: Has constantly distinguished himself by his zeal and devotion, 
and especially from 22 June to 2 July, 1916, during the removal of the 
wounded of the Division, which was safely effected despite constant 
and intense bombardments of the road and the stations. 



CITATION SERVICE DE SANTfi 

129eme DIVISION 

HOLLISTER, George, Volontaire Americain de la 
S. S. Americaine N^ 3: — 

"S'est toujours distingue par son devouement 
et son entrain, particulierement au cours des 
evacuations perilleuses du 22 Juin au 2 Juillet 
1916 operees par une route continuellement bom- 
bardee." 

"MENTIONED" IN ORDERS OF THE SANITARY SERVICE, 
129th DIVISION 

HOLLISTER, George, American volunteer in the American Sanitary 
Service No. 3: Has always distinguished himself by his devotion and 
his spirit, particularly during the dangerous removal of the wounded 
from June 22 to July 2, 1916, over a road under constant bombardment. 



300 



CITATION A LA 129eme DIVISION 

JACKSON, Everett, Volontaire Americain de la Sec- 
tion Sanitaire Americaine No 3 : — 

"Volontaire Americain de la Section Sanitaire 
Americaine N^ 3, volontaire pour toutes les taches 
et en toutes circonstances; a rendu par son devoue- 
ment les plus grands services a la section pendant 
la periode d'activite intense et dangereuse du 22 
Juin au 2 Juillet." 

"MENTIONED" IN THE 129th DIVISION 

JACKSON, Everett, American Volunteer of American Sanitary Section 
No. 3: American Volunteer of American Sanitary Section No. 3, 
volunteers for all tasks and under all circumstances; by his devotion 
rendered the most valuable service to the Section during the period of 
intense and dangerous activity, from 22 June to 2 July. 



CITATION AU ler CORPS D'ARMEE, 3eme 

DIVISION 

LEWIS, Philip, Conducteur a la S. S. U. 1: — 

"Engage volontaire, conducteur a la S. S. IT. 1 
depuis Mars 1916 se trouvant dans une localite 
soumise a un violent bombardement le 15 Juin 
1916; a montre la plus grande bravoure et le plus 
absolu mepris du danger; a aide a soigner les blesses 
et n'a consenti a s'eloigner que sur I'ordre formel 
des medecins apres avoir pris dans sa voiture tous 
les blesses qu'elle pouviat contenir et qu'il a con- 
duits dans les meilleures conditions a la formation 
sanitaire qui lui etait indiquee. 

"MENTIONED" IN THE 1st ARMY CORPS, 3d DIVISION 

LEWIS, Philip, Driver in S. S. U. 1: Volunteer, Driver in S. S. U. 1 since 
March, 1916, being in a locality subjected to a violent bombardment, 
on 15 June, 1916, displayed the greatest gallantry and utter contempt 
of danger, assisted in caring for the wounded and refused to retire 
except upon the formal order of the physicians, after he had taken in 
his car all the wounded it would hold and driven them under the best 
possible conditions to the Sanitary station to which he was directed. 

302 



CITATION SERVICE DE SANTfi 73eme 
DIVISION 

LOVELL, Walter, sous-chef de Section a la Section 
Sanitaire Automobile Americaine No, 2 : — 

"A toujours fait preuve d'un moral remarquable; 
a toujours ete un example de courage pour les 
autres conducteurs, et un precieux auxiliaire pour 
le Chef de sa Section." 

"MENTIONED" — SANITARY SERVICE OF THE 73rd 
DIVISION 

LOVELL, Walter, second in command of the American Automobile 
Sanitary Section No. 2: Has always given proof of a noteworthy spirit; 
has constantly set the example of courage to the other drivers, and 
has been an invaluable assistant to the commander of his Section. 



CITATION SERVICE DE SANTE 73^^ 
DIVISION 

McCONNELL, James R., Conducteur a la Section 
Sanitaire Automobile Americaine No 2 : — 

"Conducteur engage des la premiere heure; 
anime d'un excellent esprit; a toujours fait preuve 
d'un courage et d'une hardiesse dignes des plus 
grands eloges." 

"MENTIONED" — SANITARY SERVICE OF THE 73rd 
DIVISION 

McCONNELL, James R., Driver, of American Automobile Sanitary 
Section No. 2: Volunteered as a driver at the very beginning; in- 
spired by praiseworthy zeal; has always given proof of a courage and 
fearlessness worthy of the highest praise. 



S04 



CITATION A LA 16eme DIVISION 

L'automobiliste volontaire MacMONAGLE, Doug- 
las, de la S. S. A. Americaine N^ 8: — 

"Un obus etant tombe en plein poste de secours 
a conserve tout son calme et avec le plus grand 
devouement a contribue sous un bombardement 
au chargement de trois blesses dont I'evacuation 
etait urgente." 

"MENTIONED" IN THE 16th DIVISION 

Volunteer automobilist Douglas MacMONAGLE of American A. S. S. 
No. 8: A shell having fallen in the middle of a yoste de secours, he 
retained his self-possession, and with the utmost devotion, under 
bombardment, assisted in loading three wounded men whose removal 
was imperative. 



CITATION SERVICE DE SANTE 73eme 
DIVISION 

MARTIN, William T., Conducteur a la Section 
Sanitaire Automobile Americaine 2 depuis le mois 
de Decembre : — 

"S'est toujours distingue par son devouement 
extreme et par son esprit de devoir. S'est avance 
avec sa voiture sous un violent bombardement pour 
ramener vers I'arriere plusieurs blesses. L'auto fut 
tres endommage par des eclats de shrapnell." 

"MENTIONED" — SANITARY SERVICE OF THE 73rd 
DIVISION 

MARTIN, William T., Driver of the American Automobile Sanitary 
Section No. 1, since December: Has constantly distinguished himself 
by his extreme devotion and his sense of duty. Drove forward in his 
car under a fierce bombardment, to pick up several wounded men 
and take them to the rear. The car was badly damaged by pieces 
of shrapnel. 

306 



I 






9k 


% 


^^K 




^^^IHl- »-a«Br 




M^ 


^^^^^B 


BIb 



CITATION SERVICE DE SANTE 66eme 
DIVISION 

MELLEN, Joseph, sujet Americain, conducteur a la 
Section Sanitaire Automobile Americaine N® 3: 

"A pendant quinze jours assure nuit et jour, sur 
une route de montagne difficile et constamment 
battue par les projectiles ennemis, I'evacuation de 
nombreux blesses, avec un zele et un devouement 
dignes de tous les eloges." 

"MENTIONED" — SANITARY SERVICE OF THE 66th 
DIVISION 

MELLEN, Joseph, Driver, of American Automobile Sanitary Section 
No. 3, an American subject: Safeguarded night and day, for a fort- 
night, on a difficult mountain road, constantly swept by the enemy's 
guns, the removal of many wounded, with a zeal and devotion worthy 
of the highest praise. 



CITATION SERVICE DE SANTfi 73eme 
DIVISION 

OGILVIE, Francis Dash wood, de la Section Sani- 
taire Americaine N<^ 2, conducteur depuis le debut 
de la campagne: 

"S'est toujours distingue par son esprit de de- 
voir, son devouement et son calme absolu dans le 
danger." 

"MENTIONED" — SANITARY SERVICE OF THE 73rd 
DIVISION 

OGILVIE, Francis Dashwood, of American Sanitary Section No. 2, 
Driver since the beginning of the campaign: Has constantly distin- 
guished himself by his sense of duty, his devotion, and his perfect 
coolness in danger. 



308 



CITATION SERVICE DE SANTfi 

129eme DIVISION 

Le volontaire Americain PEIRCE, Waldo, de la Sec- 
tion Sanitaire Americaine N^ 3 : — 

"Volontaire depuis Novembre 1915 a la Section 
Sanitaire Americaine; a pris part aux evacuations 
d'une Division en Decembre et Janvier 1915 et aux 
missions perilleuses du 22 Juin au 2 Juillet 1916. 
Maintes fois expose a des bombardements violents, 
a ete a deux reprises atteint au visage et au corps 
par des eclats d'obus pendant cette derniere 
periode." 

"MENTIONED" IN ORDERS OF THE SANITARY SERVICE, 
129th DIVISION 

The American Volunteer Waldo PEIRCE, of American Sanitary Section 
No. 3: Volunteer since November, 1915, in the American Sanitary 
Section; took part in the removal of the wounded of a division in De- 
cember and January, 1915, and in carrying out dangerous missions 
from 22 June to 2 July, 1916. Constantly exposed to intense bombard- 
ment, has been wounded twice, in the face and body, by fragments of 
shell, during the latter period. 



CITATION A LA 129eme DIVISION 

POTTER, Thomas, volontaire Americain a la Sec- 
tion Sanitaire Americaine N^ 3 : — 

"Volontaire infatigable, d'une energie et d'un 
sang-froid exemplaires dans le danger." 

"MENTIONED" IN THE 129th DIVISION 

POTTER, Thomas, American volunteer of American Sanitary Section 
No. 3: An indefatigable volunteer, of exemplary energy and composure 
in danger. 



310 



CITATION SERVICE DE SANTE 73eme 
DIVISION 

PUTNAM, Tracy J., sujet Americain, conducteur a la 
Section Sanitaire Automobile Americaine N^ 3 : — 
"A pendant quinze jours assure nuit et jour, sur 
une route de montagne difficile et constamment 
battue par les projectiles ennemis, Tevacuation de 
nombreux blesses, avec un zele et un devouement 
dignes de tons les eloges." 

"MENTIONED' —SANITARY SERVICE OF THE 73rd 
DIVISION 

PUTNAM, Tracy J., Driver, of American Automobile Sanitary Section 
No. 3, an American: Safeguarded for a fortnight, night and day, on 
a difficult mountain road constantly swept by the enemy's guns, the 
removal of many wounded, with a zeal and devotion worthy of the 
highest praise. 

CITATION SERVICE DE SANTE 31eme 
CORPS D'ARMEE 

RANTOUL, Beverley, conducteur volontaire Ameri- 
cain de la Section Sanitaire Automobile N^ 4 : — 

"A tou jours fait preuve du plus grand sang- 
froid et d'un devouement absolu aux blesses, en 
procedant a leur evacuation sur des routes fre- 
quemment bombardees. S'est acquitte de certaines 
missions perilleuses avec beaucoup de calme et de 
courage, notamment le 30 Mars 1916 aGrosrouvres, 
au coursd'un bombardement, et le 10 Avril, a Xiv- 
ray , oii, allant cherclier un blesse au poste de secours^ 
sa voiture fut atteinte par des eclats d'obus. 

"MENTIONED" IN THE SANITARY SERVICE, 
31st ARMY CORPS 

RANTOUL, Beverley, American volunteer. Driver in Automobile Sani- 
tary Section No. 4: Has always displayed the greatest coolness and 
entire devotion to the wounded, while assisting in their removal on 
roads frequently under bombardment. Acquitted himself of certain 
perilous commissions with great composure and courage, notably on 
30 March, 1916, at Grosrouvres, during a bombardment, and on 10 
April, at Xivray, where, as he was on his way to bring in a wounded 
soldier to the 'poste de secours, his car was struck by fragments of shelL 

312 



CITATION A LA 66eme DIVISION 

Le Conducteur RICE, Durant, de la Section Sanitaire 
Automobile Americaine N^ 3, sujet Americain: — 
"A de nouveau fait preuve d'un devouement 
digne des plus grands eloges en assurant nuit et 
jour, pendant quinze jours, avec un parfait mepris 
du danger, I'evacuation de nombreux blesses sur 
une route de montagne constamment battue par 
les projectiles ennemis." 

"MENTIONED" IN THE 66th DIVISION 

RICE, Durant, Driver, of American Automobile Sanitary Section No. 3, 
an American: Has demonstrated anew a devotion worthy of the high- 
est praise by safeguarding night and day, for a fortnight, with utter 
contempt of danger, the removal of many wounded over a mountain 
road constantly swept by the enemy's guns. 



CITATION SERVICE DE SANTE 73eme 
DIVISION 

ROEDER, George, Conducteur a la Section Sani- 
taire Americaine N^ 2 : — 

"Depuis les premiers jours de la mobilisation a 
montre au service de la Croix Rouge une ardeur et 
un entrain qui ne se sont jamais ralentis." 

"MENTIONED" — SANITARY SERVICE OF THE 73rd 
DIVISION 

ROEDER, George, Driver, of American Sanitary Section No. 2: Since 
the first days of mobilization has displayed in the service of the Red 
Cross a zeal and energy which have never slackened. 



314 



CITATION A LA 73eme DIVISION 

SALISBURY, Edward, Chef de la Section Sanitaire 
Automobile Americaine N^ 2 : — 

"A fait preuve des meilleures qualites dans la 
conduite de sa section: infatigable, d'une volonte 
ferme et resolue, il a donne I'exemple du devoue- 
ment, de la bonte et du courage." 

"MENTIONED" IN THE 73rd DIVISION 

SALISBURY, Edward, Commander of American Automobile Sanitary 
Section No. 2: Has given proof of most excellent qualities in the man- 
agement of his Section; indefatigable, with a firm and determined will, 
he has set a fine example of devotion, kindliness, and courage. 



CITATION SERVICE DE SANTE 73eme 
DIVISION 

SCHRODER, Bernard, de la Section Sanitaire 
Automobile Americaine N^ 2 : — 
"Conducteur engage depuis le debut de la cam- 
pagne, n'a cesse de faire preuve de courage et de 
sang-froid. Tou jours aux postes les plus dangereux, 
a fait admiration de tous le 22 Juillet a Pont-a- 
Mousson, ou il a porte les premiers secours aux 
victimes du bombardement." 

"MENTIONED" — SANITARY SERVICE OF THE 73rd 
DIVISION 

SCHRODER, Bernard, of American Automobile Sanitary Section No. 
2: Volunteered as Driver at the beginning of the campaign, and has 
constantly given proof of great courage and self-possession. Always 
to be found at the most dangerous posts, he aroused universal admir- 
ation on July 22, at Pont-a-Mousson, where he administered first aid 
to the victims of the bombardment. 

316 



CITATION SERVICE DE SANTE 

geme ARMEE 

SPONAGLE, James Milton, Mecanicien a la Section 
Sanitaire Automobile Americaine N^ 1 : — 

"Le 11 Juillet 1916 est alle reparer une voiture 
restee en panne sur une route violemment bom- 
bardee; a accompli la reparation sous le feu de 
I'ennemi avec un sang-froid remarquable, s'est en- 
suite propose pour conduire une voiture d 'Ambu- 
lance et a aide a I'evacuation des blesses pendant 
une period e de bombard ement intense." 

"MENTIONED" IN THE 2d ARMY, SANITARY SERVICE 

SPONAGLE, James Milton, mechanic in American Automobile Sanitary 
Section No. 1 : On 11 July, 1916, went out to repair a car left stranded 
on a road that was being violently bombarded; made the necessary 
repairs under the enemy's fire with notable composure; then volun- 
teered to drive an Ambulance car and assisted in removing wounded 
throughout a period of intense bombardment. 



CITATION A LA 66eme DIVISION 

Le Conducteur SUCKLE Y, H., de la Section Sani- 
taire Americaine N^ 3, sujet Americain: — 

''A de nouveau fait preuve d'un devouement 
digne des plus grands eloges en assurant nuit et 
jour, pendant quinze jours, avec un parfait mepris 
du danger, I'evacuation de nombreux blesses sur 
une route de montagne constamment battue par 
les projectiles ennemis." 

"MENTIONED" IN THE 66th DIVISION 

SUCKLEY, H., Driver, of American Sanitary Section No. 3: Has again 
given proof of a devotion deserving of the highest praise by safeguard- 
ing night and day, for a fortnight, with utter contempt of danger, the 
removal of many wounded over a mountain road constantly swept 
by the enemy's fire. 



318 



CITATION SERVICE DE SANTE 73eme 
DIVISION 

TAYLOR, John, Conducteur Americain de la Section 
Sanitaire Automobile Americaine No 2 : — 

"Animedu meilleur esprit, plein d'en train et de 
courage. Le 19 Decembre, etant de service a Mont- 
auville, un obus ayant explose pres du poste tele- 
phonique, s'est porte au secours des blesses qu'il a 
aides a relever, bien qu'il ait ete lui-meme legere- 
ment contusionne. Le 20 Decembre, 1915, lors 
d'un bombardement violent de Pont-a-Mousson, 
s'est porte le premier au secours des blesses avec 
un reel mepris du danger." 

"MENTIONED" — SANITARY SERVICE OF THE 73rd 
DIVISION 

TAYLOR, John, American, Driver in the American Automobile Sani- 
tary Section No. 2: Inspired by the most exemplary sentiments, full 
of "go," and courage. On December 19, being on duty at Montau- 
ville, and a shell having exploded near the telephone station, he went 
to the assistance of the wounded, whom he helped to remove, although 
himself slightly wounded. On December 20, 1915, during a violent 
bombardment of Pont-a-Mousson, was the first to go to the assistance 
of the wounded, with a genuine disregard of danger. 

CITATION SERVICE DE SANTE 

129eme DIVISION 

TINKHAM, Edward, Volontaire Americain de la 
S. S. Americaine N© 3: — 

"A constamment rendu par son inlassable de- 
vouement les plus appreciables services; a pris 
part aux evacuations difficiles et dangereuses du 
22 Juin au 2 Juillet 1916 operees sous le feu violent 
de I'ennemi." 

"MENTIONED" IN THE SANITARY SERVICE, 
129th DIVISION 

TINKHAM, Edward, American volunteer in the American Sanitary 
Service No. 3: Has constantly rendered by his untiring devotion 
most valuable services; took part in the difficult and dangerous re- 
moval of wounded from June 22 to July 2, 1916, under the violent 
fire of the enemy. 

320 




^ 


\ V**,-* 


^ 


f 


^>''-« 
r^« 


f 






1 


U 



CITATION SERVICE DE SANTE 73eme 
DIVISION 

WALDEN, Donald M., de la Section Sanitaire 
Automobile Americaine. 

"A tou jours fait preuve de la meilleure volonte 
et s'est fait remarquer par son audace lors de 
I'attaque du 4 Juillet." 

"MENTIONED " — SANITARY SERVICE OF THE 73rd 
DIVISION 

WALDEN, Donald M., of American Automobile Sanitary Section: 
Has constantly given proof of the greatest zeal, and drew attention 
to himself by his fearlessness during the assault of July 4. 



CITATION SERVICE DE SANTE 66^me 
DIVISION 

WALKER, J. Marquand, sujet Americain, conduc- 
teur a la Section Sanitaire Automobile Americaine 
No3: — 

"A pendant quinze jours assure nuit et jour, sur 
une route de montagne difficile et constamment 
battue par les projectiles ennemis, I'evacuation de 
nombreux blesses, avec un zele et un devouement 
dignes de to us les eloges." 

"MENTIONED" — SANITARY SERVICE OF THE 66th 
DIVISION 

"WALKER, J. Marquand, Driver, of American Automobile Sanitary 
Section No. 3: Safeguarded for a fortnight, night and day, on a difficult 
mountain road constantly swept by the enemy's guns, the removal of 
many wounded, with a zeal and devotion worthy of the highest praise. 

322 




;^rTrrrT7Tr^r^r-^TT-T^7T7T- 




CITATION A LA 2eme DIVISION 
COLONIALS ETAT-MAJOR 

WHITE, Victor, S/Chef de la Section Sanitaire 
Americaine No 1, le 3 Mai 1916, charge d'evacuer 
les blesses d'un village violemment bombarde, a 
fait preuve de sang froid, de courage et du plus 
beau devouement en chargeant rapidement sa 
voiture, et en la mettant aussitot en marche, ne se 
souciant que de soustraire ses blesses a de nouveaux 
coups de I'ennenii. 

Le General MAZILLIER, Cdt. la 2eme Div. 
Signe: MAZILLIER 

"MENTIONED" IN THE 2d DIVISION, COLONIAL STAFF 

WHITE, Victor, Second in Command of American Sanitary Section 
No. 1, on May 3, 1916, being ordered to remove the wounded from a 
village that was being heavily shelled, gave proof of coolness, cour- 
age, and the noblest devotion, by loading his car rapidly, and in- 
stantly driving away, thinking of nothing except to save his wounded 
from being hit again. (Signed) General Mazilliek 

Commanding the 2d Division. 

CITATION AU ler CORPS D'ARMEE COLO- 
NIALE DIRECTION DU SERVICE DE 
SANTE 

WHITE, Victor, Conducteur. 

Engage volontaire a la S. S. A. U-1 depuis Avril 
1915; a montre en toutes circonstances beaucoup 
d'entrain, de courage et de sang froid. S'est par- 
ticulierement distingue lors de I'attaque allemande 
par les gaz le 22 Avril, des bombardements de 
Dunkerque et pendant les evacuations des postes 
de I'Eclusier et de Cappy (Fevrier-Mai 1916). 

"MENTIONED" IN THE 1st COLONIAL ARMY CORPS, 
SANITARY DIVISION 

WHITE, Victor, Driver. Served as volunteer in the S. S. A. U-1 since 
April, 1915; has displayed on all occasions much energy, courage, and 
self-possession. Distinguished himself particularly at the time of the 
German gas attack on April 22, during the bombardments of Dun- 
kirk, and during the removal of the wounded from the stations of 
Eclusier and Cappy (February-May, 1916). 

324 



CITATION A LA 129eme DIVISION 

WHEELER, Walter, volontaire Americain de la Sec- 
tion Sanitaire Americaine N^ 3 : — 

"S'est toujours propose comme volontaire pour 
les missions les plus perilleuses et a particuliere- 
ment fait preuve, pour secourir les blesses d'un 
poste de recueil sous un violent bombardement, 
d'un elan spontane digne de tout eloge." 

"MENTIONED" IN THE 129th DIVISION 

WHEELER, Walter, American volunteer, of American Sanitary Section 
No. 3: Has invariably offered himself as a volunteer for the most haz- 
ardous undertakings, and on one occasion especially gave proof of a 
spontaneous energy deserving of the highest praise, in assisting the 
wounded of a receiving post under a violent bombardment. 



CITATION SERVICE DE SANTfi 73eme 
DIVISION 

WILLIS, Harold, Conducteur a la Section Sanitaire 
Automobile Americaine N^ 2 : — 

"A toujours fait preuve d'un courage et d'une 
hardiesse dignes des plus grands eloges, notam- 
ment pendant I'attaque du 4 Juillet, s'offrant pour 
aller chercher des blesses dans un endroit tres 
perilleux, et eut sa voiture criblee d'eclats d'obus." 

"MENTIONED" — SANITARY SERVICE OF THE 73rd 
DIVISION 

WILLIS, Harold, Driver, of American Automobile Sanitary Section No. 
2: Has always given proof of a courage and fearlessness worthy of the 
highest praise, notably during the assault of July 4, in volunteering to 
go after the wounded in a very dangerous spot; his car was riddled 
with fragments of shell. 

326 



WqOLVERTON, William H., Conducteur a la Sec- 
tion San it aire Automobile Americaine No 1 : 

"Sous un bombardement incessant a continue a 
assurer le service des evacuations sans la moindre 
hesitation. A un endroit particulierement expose, 
au moment ou les obus tombaient avec violence, a 
arrete sa voiture pour prendre des blesses qu'il a 
aide a charger avec le plus grand calme, donnant 
ainsi preuve de courage et de sang-froid." 

WOOLVERTON, William H., Driver, of American Automobile Sani- 
tary Section No. 1 : Under an incessant bombardment continued to 
superintend the removals without the slightest hesitation. At one 
specially exposed spot, where shells were falling in swift succession, he 
stopped his car to pick up some wounded men whom he helped to 
put aboard, with the utmost coolness, thus demonstrating his courage 
and self-possession. 



328 




WILLIAM M. BARBER 




ROSWELL S. SANDERS 




THE "Mi:DAILLE MILITAIRE 



FRIENDS OF FRANCE 

Grand Quartier GSneral 

des Armees . ^ ^ ^ . 

Au G. Q. G., le 27 juin 1916 

Etat Major 

Bureau du Personnel 

ORDRE N^ 3234-D 
(Extrait) 

La Medaille Militaire a ete confere au militaire dont 
le nom suit : — 

Barber, William, Conducteur au Service de Sante 
d'une Division d'Inf anterie : — 

"Au cours des recentes operations, s'est dis- 
tingue par son courage et son sang-froid en assurant 
toutes les nuits I'evacuation des blesses sur une route 
continuellement bombardee par I'artillerie ennemie. 
A ete grievement blesse dans raccomplissement de 
ses devoirs." 

(La presente nomination comporte Fattribution de 
la Croix de Guerre avec Palme.) 

(Signe) J. JoFFRE 

Pour extrait conforme 

Le Lt. Colonel 

Chef du Bureau du Personnel 



Sanders, Roswell S., has been awarded the 
Medaille Militaire, but his citation was received too 
late to be included in this volume. 

(November, 1916.) 



331 



FRIENDS OF FRANCE 

[TRANSLATION] 

General Headquarters 

of the Armies General Headquarters, 27 June, 1916 

Bureau du Personnel 

Order No. 3234-D 

(Extract) 

The Medaille Militaire has been conferred upon the soldier whose name 
follows : — 

Barber, William, Driver in the Sanitary Service of an Infantry 
Division: — 

" In the course of recent operations has distinguished himself by his 
courage and coolness in safeguarding night after night the removal of the 
wounded over a road constantly bombarded by enemy artillery. Was 
severely wounded in the performance of his duties." 

(The present decoration carries with it the conferring of the Croix de 
Guerre avec Palme.) 

(Signed) J, Joffre 
A true copy: 
The Lieutenant-Colonel 
Chief of the Bureau du Personnel 



S32 



The text of the citations of the following men was 
received too late to be included in the foregoing list. 

Robert Bowman 
Stanley Dell 
Giles B. Francklyn 
Edward J. Kelley 
Owen Kenan 
Carroll Riggs 
RoswELL Sanders 
Herbert P. Townsend 




In the presence of mortal conflict, where the fulfil- 
ment of their labor of friendship lies, the men whose 
names here follow have seen fortitude greater even 
than the courage of the wounded. They have beheld 
the strength of a people unified by sacrifice so com- 
plete that its individuals are unconscious of personal 
heroism. They have worked side by side with hun- 
dreds of thousands of men and women who in con- 
summating this sacrifice have yielded, without meas- 
ure of cost, their ambition and love, and challenged 
death — with dauntless resolution to save not only 
their country, but the principles of democracy for the 
whole world. France, invincible in her resistance, has 
issued no acclamation of glory, has sought no sym- 
pathy for the costliness of the onslaught, nor pub- 
lished denunciation of the enemy, but by intrepid 
manhood has won the honor of all nations. 

These Americans, in their service of conservation, 
have gained immutable evidence of that spirit upon 
which the highest citizenship and patriotism depend. 
Whatever bitterness chance may bring into their 
futures, they at least can never lose faith in human 
nature — remembering the standard under which these 
days of their youth have been consecrated. 

H. D. S. 



ABBREVIATIONS 

iTh* abbreviations of names of colleges and universities represented in this list are 
as follows.) 



A. 


= Ames 


P. 


=* Princeton 


Am. 


= Amherst 


P.S. 


= Pennsylvania State 


B. 


«= Brown 


Pa. 


«= Paris 


B.C. 


= Beloit Coll. 


Pitts. 


« Univ. of Pittsburg 


Bow. 


= Bowdoin 


St.P.S. 


= St. Paul's School 


C.C. 


= Cooper Coll. 


Sew. 


= Sewanee 


C.G.S. 


- Cornell Graduate School 


Sw. 


= Swarthmore 


Cam. 


= Cambridge 


T.C. 


= Trinity Coll. 


Co. 


c: Columbia 


U.A. 


= Univ. of Arizona 


Col.C. 


= Colorado Coll. 


U.C. 


= Univ. of California 


Cor. 


«= Cornell 


U.M. 


= Univ. of Miohigan 


D. 


«= Dartmouth 


U.Mo. 


= Univ. of Missouri 


F. 


1= Fordham 


U.N. 


»= Univ. of Nevada 


G. 


= Groton School 


U.N.C. 


= Univ. of North Carolina 


H. 


= Harvard 


U.N.D. 


= Univ. of North Dakota 


H.-S. 


= Hampton-Sidney 


U.P. 


= Univ. of Pennsylvania 


Ham. 


»= Hamilton 


U.S.C. 


= Univ. of South Carolina 


I. 


«= Iowa 


U.U. 


= Univ. of Utah 


J.H. 


= Johns Hopkins 


U.V. 


= Univ. of Virginia 


L.G. 


= Lehigh Coll. 


V. 


= Vanderbilt 


M.A. 


« Mass. Agricultural 


W.R. 


= Western Reserve 


M.I.T. 


= Mass. Inst. Technology 


w.u. 


= Washington Univ. 


N.U. 


«= Northwestern Univ. 


Wab. 


= Wabash 


New.C. 


= Newberry Coll. j 


Wms. 


= WilUams 


O. 


= OberUn 


Y. 


= Yale 




BONNE CHANCE 50LDAT5 DE FRANCE 



MEMBERS OF THE FIELD SERVICE 

AMERICAN AMBULANCE 

OCTOBER, 1916 



NavM Entered Left Address Coll. 

John R. Abbott July'T6 Andover, Mass 

Eustace L. Adams Feb.'15...June'15, . . Newtonville, Mass. .T.C.. 

Harry Adamson Jan'16 . . . June'16 . . . Pittsfield, Mass T.C. . 



See. 
...2 
...3 
...4 

Fred Hunter All April'lS. .Aug.'15 Allendale, S.C H % 

Julian B. L. Allen Aug.'15 New York City St.P.S 4 

Charles Burton Ames Sept.'16 W. Newton, Mass. . .Am 8 

John Worthington Ames, Jr. Oct.'16 Cambridge, Mass. . . H 2 

A. Piatt Andrew 

Inspector General Dec.'14 Gloucester, Mass P.-H 1 

Donald C. Armour April'lG Evanston, 111 Y 8,3 

Kenneth L. Austin Mar.'lS Lausanne 4 

Percy L. Avard July' 15.. .June'16. . .New York 1 



Paris 1 

New York 1 

Toledo, Ohio 3 

New York Y 2 



.B. 



4t 



Charles Baird, Jr July'16 New York H 2,3 

Roger M. L. Balbiani 

Section Director Oct. '14. . .Dec. '15 

Alwyn BaU Nov.'14 . .Feb.'15. 

William M, Barber May' 16 . .Aug.' 16 

Norman L. Barclay ( Nov.'14. . July'15. 

I Nov.' 15.. June' 16 
Edward O. Bartleit 

Chief of Construction Oct.' 15 Florence, Italy 

Frederick B. Bate 

Mechanical Officer Aug.'14. .Apriri6. . .Chicago * 

Frank L, Baylies Feb.'16 New Bedford, Mass 1,3 

James D. Beane July'16 Concord, Mass 9 

Wm. De Ford Bigelow July'16 Cohasset, Mass H 4 

Malbone H. Birckhead April'ie New York H 8 

Percy A. Blair Jan.'16. . .Mar.'16 . . .Kent, England H 4 

Arthur Bluethenthal May'16 Wihnington, N.C. ..P 3 

X Tent Hospital t Park * Base 

337 



FRIENDS OF FRANCE 

Name Entered Left Address Coll. Sec. 

John E. Boit May'16 Brookline, Mass H 2 

Douglas T. Boiling Aug.'16 University, Va U.V 4 

Robert Bowman ( Sept.'15. .Nov.'lS. ..Lake Forest, III Y 1 

( Feb.'ie 

Jackson H, Boyd April'lG Harrisburg, Pa P 8 

Alfred M. Brace July'16 Green Bay, Wis B.C 9 

Amos F. Breed Sept.'16 Brookline, Mass H 

Michael Brenner Nov.'14. .Sept.'15. ..New York 1 

Leighton Brewer July'15. . .Sept.'15. . .New York.. . ^ 1 

Charles H. Brown Oct.'15. . .Mar.'16 . . .New York U.V 4 

John F. Brown. Jr Nov.'lS . .Feb.'16 Readville, Mass H 1 

J. Paulding Brown Sept.' 14. .May' 15. . .Montclair, N.J H 1 

Otto W. Budd Nov.'14, .Oct.'15 San Antonio, Texas .1 

Thomas B. Buffum Mar.'16 New York H 8,3 

Lyman T. Burgess May'16 Sioux City, la D 2 

Robert G. Burleigh Feb.'15 . .Aug.'15. . .Hudson, Mass U.N t 

Carleton Burr 

Section Commander Feb.'16 Boston H 2,9 

Leslie Buswell June'15 . . Oct.'15 .... Gloucester, Mass.. . . Cam 2 

Victors. Caldwell, Jr June'15. . Sept.' 15. . .Omaha, Nebr Y 3 

Joshua G. B. Campbell 

Section Sous-chef Dec.'14 New York 1 

David Carb Feb.'lS. . July'15 Boston H 1 

A. Graham Carey 

Section Sous-chef Dec.'14 Cambridge, Mass . . . H 3 

James L. Carson Jan.'16. ..April'lS. . .Chicago 1 

Philip T. Gate Oct.'15. ..Mar.'16. . .Boston H 3 

Walter Chrystie, Jr June'16 Bryn Mawr, Pa P.S 9 

Coleman T. Clark April'16 Westfield, N.J Y 3 

John W. Clark Nov.'lS Flushing, L.I Y 3 

Philip R. Clark Feb.'16. . . Mar.'16 . . .Shelter Island, N.Y .3 

Charles R. Codman, Jr. ... | Mar.'15. . July'15 . . .Boston H 3 

I Feb.'ie... Aug.'ie 

Charles H. Cogswell Mar.'lG. . Sept.'lG. . .Cedar Rapids, Ia....1 4 

George R. Cogswell June'16 Cambridge, Mass.. .H 9 

Samuel H. Colton, Jr April'lS. .July'15 Worcester, Mass. . . .Bow 1 

R. Folger W. Conquest June'16 Philadelphia U.P 9 

Sidney A. Cook Sept.'16 New Haven, Conn. . Y.-C.G.S. 2 

WUliam D. Crane Mar.'16. .Sept.'16. . .New York H 4 . 

Charles T. Crocker April'ie. . June'16 . , . Fitchburg, Mass 8 

Charles R. Cross, Jr Feb.'15.. .Mar.'15, . .Brookline, Mass H 1 

Tingle W. Culbertson Mar.'16 Sewickley, Pa P.. ." 1 

Lawrence B. Cummings Aug. '16 Indianapolis, Ind. . .H. .... .3,4 

John E. Cunningham Apriri5. .Aug.'16. . .Boston M.I.T I 

Richard J. Cunninghame 

Section Sous-chef Apriri5 , , Nov.'lS . . .Edinburgh t 

Edmund J. Curley ( Mar.'lS. .Aug.'lS. . .New York H 3 

lOct.'15...Jan.'16 

Enos Curtin Feb.'lS. . .June'15. . . New York M.I.T.. . . 

Brian C. Curtis June'16 New York H 9 

t Tent 



AMERICAN AMBULANCE FIELD SERVICE 

Name Entered Left Address Coll. Sec. 

Nicholson F. Curtias Dec.'lS.. .Aug.'lO. . .Cleveland W.R 4 

Edwin G. Gushing. Mar.'15. .Feb.'16 New York '. 4% 

William B. Dana June'16. .Aug.'lG. . .New Haven, Gonn..Y t 

Colgate W. Darden, Jr Aug.'16 Franklin, Va U.V 1 

Wm. S. Davenport, Jr July'16 Paris 9 

Charles G. Davis Feb.'lG Boston H 4 

Mahlon W. Davis Jan.' 15. . .Aug.' 15. . .Brookline, Mass 2 

Alden Davison Feb.'16. . .Sept.'16. . .New York Y 8 

Henry P. Davison, Jr June'16. .Aug. '16... .New York G t 

Benjamin F. Dawson June' 15 . .July'16 Philadelphia U.P 3 

Harwood B. Day Sept.'lS. .Dec.'lS. . .Providence, R.I 1 

Samuel G. Dayton Feb. 16.. .Aug.'16. . .Philadelphia P.-U.P. . .4 

William S. Dell July'16 Princeton, N.J P 4 

Harry De Maine 

Aaaistant to Inspector Sept.'14 Roby, England * 

Edward H. De Neveu July'16 Asnidres, France.. . .Pa 3 

Clifford A. De Roode July'15. . .April'16. . .New York It 

Edward J. M. Diemer Mar.'16 New York 2 

George Dock, Jr May'16 St. Louis D .2 

Arthur G, Dodge Apriri6 Weatogue, Conn Y 8 

David B. Douglass Jan.'lS. . . April'ie .. .West Newton, Mass 3 

Jerome I. H. Downes Sept.'lS . . Feb.'16. . . . Brookline, Mass. . . . H 1 

Luke C. Doyle Sept.'lS. .Feb.'16 Worcester, Mass... .Y 3 

Vivian Du Bouchet Sept.'14. .Feb.'16 Paris 2 

Rex W. Dunlap Nov.'15. . Feb.' 16.. . .Kansas City, Mo. . . Y 4 

Brooke Leonard Edwards . . .Feb.'16 Philadelphia 1 

Wm. K. B. Emerson July'15. ..Nov.'16. . .New York H 3 

George K. End Dec.'lS, . ,July'16. . . . New York Sw.-Co. . . 1 

Edwin H. English June'16 New Haven, Conn..Y 9 

Josiah W. Eno July'15. .Mar.'16. . .New York 1 

John N. d'Este Sept.'16 Boston H 

John E. Ewell Feb.'16 Washington, D.C. . . J.H t 

Charles S. Faulkner April'16. .Oct.'16 Keene, N.H 8 

Samuel P. Fay ...May'lS. .Sept.'lS. ..Boston H 1 

William P. Fay Sept.'15. .Mar.'16. . .New York H 2 

Powel Fenton ( Feb.'lS. . . May'16 . . . Philadelphia U.P 3 

( Aug.'ie 

DanforthB. Ferguson Sept.'U. .Aug.'15... .Brooklyn, N.Y.. . 2 

Fearchear Ferguson Dec.'14. .Aug.'15 New York .1 

Pierre Fischofif Apriri5..Mar.'16 . . .Paris 2t 

John R. Fisher May'16 Arlington, Vt Co 2 

Charles H. Fiske, 3rd Aug.'16 Boston H. 3 

C. Stewart Forbes Feb.'16.. .Sept.'16. . .Boston H 4 

Frederick M. Forbush Apriri6 Detroit 8 

Eric A. Fowler Aug.*16 New York P 4 

Giles B. Francklyn. June'lS Lausanne 1,3 

V. Frank Aprii'15 Paris t 

t Tent t Park * Base 

339 



FRIENDS OF FRANCE 

Name ; Entered Left Address Coll. Sec. 
Chas. J. Freeborn 
Section Commander Mar.'lS San Francisco. . . , . . Y ♦ 

George F. Freeborn 

Equipment Officer July'15.. .May'16. . .San Francisco * 

Frank H. Gailor Dec.'15...Apriri6. . .Memphis, Tenn. Sew.-Co. .2 

Stephen Galatti 

Assistant General Inspector Sept.'15 New York H 3 

Rufus W. Gaynor Sept.'16 St. James, L.I Am 1 

Harold H. Giles July'15. . .Sept.'lS. . .Colorado Springs. . .P I 

John L. Glenn Dec.'lS. . . Jan,'16. . . .Chester, S.C U.S.C ♦ 

J. Halcott Glover 

Section Sous-chef Nov,'14 , . Dec.'lS. . . .London 2 

Robert R. Gooch Aug.'16 Charlottesville, Va. . U.V 4 

John R. Graham Nov.'15. .May'16. . .Philadelphia U.P 2 

John McC. Granger July'15. . . Nov.'15. . .New York F. . . . 1 

Roger Griswold Jan.' 16. . .Sept.' 16. . .Cambridge, Mass. . .H 2 

Edmund L. Gros 

Chief physician Aug.'14 Paris C.C ♦ 

H. Dudley Hale Mar.'lS. .April'16. . .New York H 3 

Louis P. Hall, Jr. 

Supply Officer ( Sept.'lS. .Dec.'lS Ann Arbor, Mich. . .D 3 

\ April'16 t 

Richard N. Hall Jime'lS . . Dec.'lS Ann Arbor, Mich. . . D 3 

(Balled in service) 

Paul S. Haney Jan.'lS. , .July'15 Quakertown, Pa P 1 

Sigurd Hansen Nov. '14 Paris 1,4 

Henry K. Hardon Jime'lS. .Sept.'15. ..New York H 3 

James W. Harle Feb.'lS. . .Oct.'lS . . . .New York 2,1 

Raymond Harper June'16 New York P 2 

William C. Harrington Oct.'16 Worcester, Mass. . . . H 4 

H. Sydnor Harrison Mar.'lS . . July'lS Charleston, W.Va. . .Co 1 

J. Letcher Harrison June'16 Charlottesville, Va. .U.V 9 

Willis B. Haviland .Sept,'lS. . Jan.'16 Indianapolis A .2 

Bartlett E. Hayden Feb.'lS... Oct.'lS Watertown, Mass.. 1 

John R. Heilbuth May'16 Paris 2 

Walter H. Hellier June'lS. .Oct.'lS Boston.. Y 2 

Alex. R. Henderson. June'lS. .Sept.'lS.. .New York H 3 

LOVERINQ HiLIi 

Section Commander Nov.'14 New York.. H ,3 

Laurence W. Hitt Jan.'lS. . .Aug.'16. . .New York Cor 3 

William A. Hoeveler Feb.' 16. . .Sept.' 16, . .Pittsburgh Pitts 2 

George M. HoUister Feb.'16 Grand Rapids, Mich. H 3 

Carlyle H. Holt Feb.'lS. . . Aug.'lS . . . Hingham, Mass H 2 

Thomas G. Holt Feb.' 16.. .Sept.' 16. . .Grand Rapids, Mich. Y 2 

Sidney Howard Jime'16 Oakland, Cal U.C 9 

John F. W. Huffer Dec' 14... Sept.' 15. . .Paris 2 

J. Cowan Hulbert 

Section Director Feb.'15. . .Mar.'16. . .St. Louis W.U 4J: 

* Base t Park t Tent 

340 



AMERICAN AMBULANCE FIELD SERVICE 

Name Entered Left Address Coll. Sec. 

Oscar A. lasigi 

Section Sous-chef f Jan.'15. ..July'15. . ..Boston M.I.T...1,8 

t April' 16 

Jerry T. lUich Dec.'lS. . .May'16. . .San Diego, Cal U.C 3 

Robert W. Imbrie Dec.'lS Washington 1,3 

Henry G. Iselin Feb.'16 Genets (Manche) 

France 2 

John P. leelin Sept.'16 Genets (Manche) 

France 2 

Everett Jackson Dec.'15 Colorado Springs. . ,Col.C. . .3,8 

Leslie P. Jacobs Mar.'16. .Sept.'16.. .Laramie, Wyo H 8 

Allan R. Jennings July'15. . . Jan.'16 Philadelphia H 3 

Walter Jepson July'16 Sparks, Nevada. . . .U.N .9 

Henry D. Jewett. Aug.'16 West Newton, Mass. M.A 4 

Archibald B. Johnston April' 16. .July'16 Pittsburg Cor 3 

Terence R. Johnston Feb.'16 Chicago M.I.T.. .2.9 

Henry S. Jones May'16 Brooklyn, N.Y L.C 1 

Frederick S. Judson June'15 . .Nov.'lS. . .New York 3 

Edward J. Kelley .Aug.'16. .Sept.'16. . .Philadelphia, Pa 4 

(Killed in service) 

Dr. Owen Kenan May ,'16 Kenansville, N.C. . . U.N.C. . . .2 

Peter L. Kent Dec.'14 New York Co V 

Hugo A. Kenyon Sept.'lS. .Deo.'15 Peacedale, R.I B 1 

Grenville T. Keogh April'16. .Oct.'16. . . . New Rochelle, N.Y 8 

James M. Killeen Oct.'16 Concord, N.H D 8 

Arthur Kingsland June'15. .Oct.'lS. . . .New York 3 

Harold L. Kingsland 

Section Sous-chef Dec.'14.. .Oct.'15. . . .New York Cam 1 

PaulB. Kurtz ( Aug.'lS. .Nov.'lS. . . Germantown, Pa — H 1 

( July'16 

Julian L. Lathrop Feb.*16. . . Aug.'16. . . New Hope, Pa H 1 

Empie Latimer Nov.'15 . . July'16 Wihnington, N.C. . . P 1 

Richard Lawbence 

Section Commander Nov.' 14. .July'15. . . .Groton, Mass H 3 

George Lebon Oct.'16 Great Neck, L.I 

Robert R. Lester June'16 Kansas City, Mo. . .P. 9 

David W. Lewis June'15 . .Nov.'15. . .Brooklyn, N.Y H 3 

Philip C. Lewis Feb.' 16. . . Aug.' 16 . . . Indianapolis, Ind. . . H 1 

Clark E. Lindsay. Aug.'16 Charlottesville, Va. .H.-S 1 

Howard B. Lines f Sept.'15 . . Dec.'15 Cambridge, Mass. . . D 1,8 

I Sept.' 16 

Robert Littell July'16.. .Sept. '16. . .New York G f 

John D. Little May'16 Maiden, Mass D 1 

Preston Lockwood 

Assistant to Inspector ... |May'15. .Oct.'lS St. Louis W.U. . . .3* 

(Dec.'15...Feb.'16. 
Walter Lovell 

Section Director Feb.' 15. . .June'16 . . . Newtonville, Mass. . H 2 

Arthur E. Lumsden June'16 Chicago 8 

George H. Lyman June'16. Boston H 9 

t Tent * Base t Park 

341 



FRIENDS OF FRANCE 



Name Entered Left 

George A. McCall Nov.' 15. .Aug.' 16. 

George B. McClary June' 15. .Oot.'lS. , 

James R. McCoimell Feb.'15.. .Dec.'lS.. 

Harold F. McCormick, Jr. . . July'16. . .Oct.'lG. . 

John H. McFadden, Jr. 

Treasurer Oct.'14 



Address Coll. Sec. 

.Philadelphia U.P 4 

.Oak Park, 111 D 3 

.Carthage, N.C U.V 2 

.Chicago G .f 



Donald H. McGibeny July'15.. .Nov '15. 

Dallas D. L. McGrew 

Section Sous-chef Jan.' 15. . .July 15. . 

Donald S. MacLaughlan Oct.'16 

Robert Maclay 

Section Director Aug.' 14 . 



.Philadelphia..., 
.Indianapolis. .. , 



...U.P.. 
.. .Ham. 



Oct.'15.. 
Dec' 15.. 
Sept.' 16. 
Sept.' 16. 



Logan McMenemy July'15. 

Douglas MacMonagle Dec.'15 

Francis W, MacVeagh July'16. 

Jacques Magnin July'16 

Francis P. Magoun, Jr Feb.'16. . .Aug.'16 

Harold A. Manderson July '16 

Kenneth Marr Dec.'15. . 

Verne Marshall Feb.'16. . 

William T. Martin Nov.' 14 . 

Austin B. Mason 

Section Commander Mar. '16 . 



July'16. . 
Aug.' 16. 
Nov.' 15. 



..Boston H 3 

. New York 2 

• New York Co IJ 

..Rockford, 111 Y.. 2 

. . San Francisco U.C 3,8 

.New York G t 

.Paris 3 

. Cambridge, Mass. . . H 1 

. Portland, Maine Bow 9 

.Livermore, Cal 2 

. Cedar Rapids, la . . . Coe 4 

.Burlington, N.J Pitts 2 



Robert Matter Sept.' 15. .Dec.'lS. . 

Frank Mauran July'16. . .Aug.'16. 

John Melcher April'lS. .Aug.'15. 

Joseph M. Mellen June' 15. .Jan.' 16.. 



.Boston H.-T.. ..4,8 

.Marion, Ind P 3 

.Philadelphia Y t 

.New York H 3 

. Garden City, N.Y.. .H 3 

Appleton T. Miles Oct.'16 Brattleboro, Vt D 8 

Donald W. Monteith Feb.' 16.. .June* 16. . .New York 2 

Rodman B. Montgomery . ( June'15. .Sept.'lS. . .Rhinebeck, N.Y. . . .P 2,4,3 

( June' 16 

H. Kirby Moore Aug.'15. .Nov.*15. . .Philadelphia. 3 

John C. B. Moore June'16 Cambridge, Mass.. .H , . .9 

Lawrence S. Morris July'16 Albany, N.Y H 4 

Philip R. Morss Aug.'lS. .Oct.'15.. . .Chestnut Hill, Mass. H 3 

Robert T. W. Moss 

Chief of Repair Park Jan.'15 .New York H 2t 

Allan H. Muhr 

Comptroller Jan.'15 .Paris * 

Stephen I. Mvmger Sept.'lG Dallas, Texas V 8 

John K Munroe May'16 Tuxedo Park. N.Y..H 3 

Albert Nalle June'15. .Sept.'lS . . .Bryn Mawr, Pa P. 3 

Basil K. Neftel Oct.'16 Larchmont, N.J 8 

David T. Nelson Dec.'15...Apriri6.. .Mayville, N.D.... ..U.N.D....1 

Charles W. Nevin, 2nd Sept.'16 Philadelphia. P 9 

Ogden Nevin April'lS. .July'15 Burlington, N.J. . . . Y 1 

Winthrop P. Newman May'16 Orange, N.J 2 

Emory H. Niles June'16 Baltimore J.H 9 

t Park * Base J Tent 

342 



AMERICAN AMBULANCE FIELD SERVICE 

Name Entered Left Address Coll. Sec. 

John Oakman Nov.'14. .Feb.'lS. . . .New York Wms 1 

Leonard Ober June'15 . . Oct,'15 . . . . Baltimore P 3 

Francis D. Ogilvie 

Section Sous-chef Nov.'14 Lindfield, Sussex 2 

James A. O'Neill Feb.' 16.. .July' 16 Jersey City, N.J Co 2 

Earl D. Osborn July'15. . .Oct.'lS New York. . P 3 

Frederick R. Ostheimer Aug.'16 Paris 4 

Henry B. Palmer June'16 New York H 3 

Joseph A. Parrott Sept.'16 San Mateo, Cal Cam 4 

W. Barclay Parsons, Jr July ' 16. . .Sept.' 16 . . .New York H t 

JohnG. Paul Aug.'16 Watertown, Fla P 4 

Samuel H. Paul Feb.'16.,.Aug.'16 . . .Chestnut Hill, Pa 1 

Waldo Peirce , June'15. . July'16, . . .Bangor, Maine H 3 

J. R. Osgood Perkins Nov.'16. .April'16. . .West Newton, Mass. H 3 

Oliver H. Pbrrt 

Section Commander .Feb.'ie Elmhurst, L.I., P 4 

George W. Phillips Dec' 15. . . April'16 . . . S. Sudbury, Mass. . . M.I.T 3 

Carleton M. Pike Feb.'16.. .Aug.'16. . .Lubeo, Maine Bow 4 

Gerhard W. Pohlman Mar.'16 New York 3,8 

Carleton A. Potter June'16 Oneida, N.Y D 2 

Thomas W. Potter Dec.'16 Westchester, N.Y 3 

W. Clarkson Potter Jime'16 Riverdale-on-Hud- 

son, N.Y P 1 

Emory Pottle Sept.'15. .June'16. . .Lago di Como, 

Italy Am 2 

Howard H. Powel Feb.'16 Newport, R.I H 2 

Wm. Prickett Mar.'16 . . Sept.'16 . . . Wilmington, Del. . . . P 4 

Tracy J. Putnam Apriri5. .Jan.'16 Boston H 1,3 

Meredith H. Pyne June'16. .Sept.'16. . . Bernardsville, N.J...G t 

Kenneth M. Quinby June'15. .Sept.'lS. . .Pittsburgh 3 

Walter K. Rainsford Jan.' 16... Aug.' 16. . .Litchfield, Conn H 3 

Beverley Rantoul Feb.'16.. .Aug.'16. , .Salem, Mass 4 

John V. Ray Dec.'15...May'16. . .Charleston, W. Va..U.V 3 

Bertwall C. Read April'16 Bloomfield, N.J P 8 

Charles Reed Nov.' 14. . . Feb.' 15 Great Barrington, 

Mass 1 

George F. Reese June' 15... Oct.' 15... .Ravenna, Ohio 3,1 

P. Newbold Rhinelander, . . .July'16 Lawrence, L.I H 9 

Durant Rice 

Section Sous-chef Jan.'15. . .Feb.'16 New York H 3 

William G. Rice July'16 Albany, N.Y H 1 

Allan S. Richardson May'15.. .Aug.'lS .. .New Brunswick, N.J 1 

Gardner Richardson Dec.'14. . . Apriri5. . . New York Y 1 

William E. Richardson Aug.'15. .Oct.'15. .. .New York 1 

Carroll G. Riggs June'15 McCormick, Wash..Y.l 2 

Malcolm T. Robertson April '15. .July'15 Brooklyn, N.Y P .1 

Robert T. Roche Mar.'16 East Orange, N.J.. .P 1 

George J. Rockwell 

Section Sous-chef Feb.'15 . . Aug.'16 . . . Bradbury, Conn 1.4 

t Park 

343 



FRIENDS OF FRANCE 

Name Entered Left Address '' Coll. See. 

George H. Roeder 

Section Sous-chef Jan.'15 . . . Mar.'16 . , . New Brunswick, 



N.J. 



Randolph Rogers April'lB. .Sept.'16. . .Grand Rapids, 

Mich 8 

Wm. B, Rogers, Jr June'16. .Sept.'lS . . .Dedham, Mass G t 

Lawrence Rumsey Dec.'14. . . Aug.'15 , . . Buffalo, N.Y H 1 

William P. Russell Aug.'lG Curwansville. Pa. . .Y 4 

Dolph F. Ryan June'15. . Jan.'lG New York F.. ..... .1 

Edward Van D. Salisburt 

Section Commander Sept.'14. .Sept.'16. . .Chicago H 2,lt 

Roswell S. Sanders Jan.'16 Newburyport, 

Mass 4 

Daniel Sargent Mar.'16 Wellesley, Mass H 3 

James K. Saimders Sept.'lG New York U.Mo.. . .8 

J. Sears R. Sayer, Jr Feb.'lS. . . July'15... .New York 1 

Bernard N. P. Schroder. . . .Nov.'14. .Mar.'lS. . . Neuilly-sur-Seine . . .N.U 2 

Edgar Scott, Jr June'16.. .Aug.'16. . .Bar Harbor, Maine. G.. t 

William B. Seabrook April'lG . . Sept.' 16 . . . Atlanta, Ga New.C.. , . 8 

Edward M. Seccombe Feb.'16. . .Oct.'16 Derby, Conn 2 

Henry Seton June'16 Tuxedo Park, N.Y,.H 3,8 

Loyal F. Sewall Feb.'16.. .Aug.'16 Bath, Maine Bow 4 

Edward W. Shattuck Nov.'14 . . May'15. . . . Bristol, N.H 3 

M. C. Shattuck May'16 Bristol, N.H Am 8 

Henry Sheahan Aug.'lS. .Feb.'16 Topsfield, Mass H 2* 

Clarence B. Shoninger June'16 New York Y 8 

Hiram Sibley May'15. .Sept.'lS. . .South Bend, Ind 1 

J. Hopkins Smith, Jr Jan.'16... May'16 New York H 3 

Philip D. H. Smith June'15. .Sept.'lS. . .Brooklyn, N.Y D 2 

Thomas J. Smith Nov.'14. .July'15 Chicago 1,2 

Francis N. Solis-Cohen July' 16 Philadelphia U.P 9 

Edward C. Sortwell April'16 Wiscasset, Maine... H 8,3 

George F. Spavdding Dec.'15...Mar.'16. . .Harper, Calif ornia..U.A 1 

James M. Sponagle Nov.'15 Gloucester, Mass 1 

Ernest N. Stanton Nov.'lS. .July'16.. ..Grosse Isle, Mich.. .U.M 4 

Roland W. Stebhins 

Section Sous-chef Feb. '15.. .Jtme'15. . . Williamstown, Mass. H 1 

William Y. Stevenson Mar.'16 Philadelphia . . .U.P I 

George B. Struby April'16 Denver, Colo Y 2 

Kimberly Stuart A\ig.'16 Neenah, Wise M.LT 4 

Henry M. Suckley 

Section Sous-chef. Feb.'lS Rhinebeck, N.Y H 3 

Edward H. Sudbury Oct.'15...Jan.'16... .New York Am 2 

Robert W. Sykes Sept.'15. .Mar.'16. . .Brooklyn, N.Y 4t 

Arthur R. Taber Nov.'15. .Feb.'lB.. . .New York P 4 

George F. Talbot. June'16 Falmouth, Maine.... H 9 

Melvin F. Talbot June'15. .Sept. 15. . .Falmouth, Maine. . ..H 3 

John C. Taylor July'15. . . Jan.'16. . . .New York F 2 

t Park * Base _ t Tent 

344 



AMERICAN AMBULANCE FIELD SERVICE 

Name Entered Left Address Coll. Sec. 

Joseph M. Taylor July'15. . . April'16. . .New York F 1 

Lionel V. Teft . , June'15. .Nov.'15. . .Peoria, 111 D 3 

Aubrey L. Thomas April' 16. .Oct.' 16 Washington, D.C. . .P 8 

Moyer D. Thomas Aug.'16 Salt Lake City U.U 4 

Edward I. Tinkham. Feb.' 16 Upper Montclair, 

N.J Cor 3,4 

Paul Tison Feb.*16 New York H 3,1 

Robert C. Toms 

Section Sous-chef Feb.'16. . .Sept.'lB. . .Marion, Iowa A 4t 

Vernon R. Tower Sept.'lB Hanover, Mass 

Edward D. Townsend ( Mar.'lS . . April'ie. . .New York P 1 

\ June' 16 
Herbert P. Townsend 

Section Commander Mar.'lS New York P 1 

Roger T. Twitchell Oct.'16 Dorchester, Mass. . .H 4 

John G. Underbill Feb.'16.. .May'16. . .Owega, N.Y Wma 1 

William E. Van Dorn Nov.'lS. .Mar.'16. . .Chicago Wab 2 

George Van Santvoord Mar.'16. .Sept.'16. . .Troy, N.Y Y 8 

Donald M. Walden Jan.'15. . .Dec.'lS.. . .Brooklyn, N.Y 2 

J. Marqtjand Walker 

Section Director Sept.'lS New York H 3,2 

Samuel S. Walker June'16. Garrison-on-Hud- 

son,N.Y Y 1 

William H. C. Walker . . . . f Dec.'l 5. . . May'16 . . . Hingham, Mass 2 

( Sept.' 16 

Wm. Henry Wallace, Jr July'16 New York Co 4 

Wm. Noble Wallace June'16 Indianapolis Y 1 

Richard C. Ware 

Section Sous-chef Feb.'16 East Milton, Mass. . H 4 

Chas. L. Watkins July'16 New York Y 3,8 

Paxil B. Watson, Jr Mar.'lS. .June'15. . .Milton, Mass H 3 

Herman A. Webster 

Section Commander ( Jan.'lS. . .Oct.'lS. . . .Chicago Y 2* 

I Oct. '16 

Berkeley Wheeler Oct.'16 Concord, Mass 

Walter H. Wheeler Feb. '16. . Aug.'16. . . Yonkers, N.Y H 3 

Kenneth T. White .Nov.'lS. . Aug.'16. . .Grosse Isle, Mich. . .U.M 4 

Victor G. White 

Section Sous-chef Feb.'lS. . . Oct,'16 New York Cor 1 

Harold B. Willis Mar.'lS. .June'16. . .Boston H 2 

Randolph C. Wilson ....... May'16 New York Co 1 

Cornelius Winant June'16 New York P 3 

Frederick J. Winant July'lS. . .Sept.'lS. . .New York P 2 

Charles P. Winsor Aug.'lS . . Aug.'16 Concord, Mass H 1 

Oliver Wolcott Feb.' 16.. .June'16. . .Milton, Mass H 2 

Robert W. Wood, Jr July'16. Baltimore, Md H 9 

Benjamin R. Woodworth. . . May'lS. .July'16. . . .Germantown, Pa 1 

William H. Woolverton Sept.' 15 . . April'16 . . . New York Y 1 

t Park * Base 



CAMBRIDGE . MASSACHUSETTS 
U . S . A 




_ As the quick transportation of wounded- from the front to the nearest hospital- 
is 80 great a factor m saving their lives, the American Ambulance Field Service was 



organized soon after the beginning of the war, and during the subsequent two years its 
achievement has fuUy demonstrated the value of its purpose. It has now in the field 
more than 200 motor ambulances. These are driven by young American volunteers, 
most of whom are graduates of American universities. To thrni has been successfully 
entrusted the vitally important matter of bringing the wounded in the shortest pos- 
sible time from the trenches to places where the first surgical help can be given. 
Upon this first surgical help largely depends, naturally, the chance of the wounded 
surviving long enough to reach the base hospitals. These ambulances are grouped in 
sections of twenty to thirty cars, and attached to the French Armies. They carry 
wounded between the front and the Army Hospitals within the Army Zone. So 
valiantly has their work been done that in each section a number of these men have 
been given the croix de guerre for gallantry under fire. 

This service with the French Armies at the front is maintained throiioh a special 
Field Service Fuiro, and those desiring to give to it should send their contributions 
as directed below. Curtailing expenses to the lowest point consistent with efficiency, 
-ar monthly expenditure of approsinmtely ^11,000." is ottt f^r.nd Ttfjdis:!*. Tlui^ 
amount is being raised by single gifts — or by monthly subscriptions for any number' 
of months, or the duration of the war. These monthly contributions of course vary 
greatly, according to the means of those who are kind enough to help; in two or 
three cases extraordinarily generous amounts being given, and in many instances 
monthly sums ranging from $5.°° up to $100."" having been promised. Needless to 
say contributions of any size — monthly or single — will be most gratefully received. 
Guarantees for the year at present amount to about $5000.™ monthly. As this sum 
— even with numerous additional gifts — is insufficient for current needs it is very 
keenly hoped that those who during the past year have been so generous as to con- 
tribute to the purchase of the ambulances in use, and others who can now perhaps 
more fully appreciate the true worth of this work to France, may feel willing to do 
what they are able toward guaranteeing its continuation. 



Cheques may be made payable to 

"Am. Am. Field Service Fund" 

d sent to Lee, Higginson & Co., State St., Boston, Mass. 



Pretident American Hospital in Parii 



* ■ . * 

J Owing to the fact that five new sections of ambulances have recently been J 

J sent to the front, the waiting list of the past eighteen months has been de- J 

4( pleted, and accordingly a limited number of <fy 

4f Volunteer Ambulance Drivers are Wanted J 

■%i New men are also needed from time to time to fill the places of those who ^ 

4* return to America on leave, or who are unable to re-enlist at the expiration of J 

J their six months in the field. J 

"^ REQUISITE QUAMFIOATIONS J 

^ American Citizenship — Good Health— Clean Record — Ability to driie Automobiles ,§, 

4f (auperfloial knowledge of repair work an advantage)— Nosalary.batliTOgexpenBOBpaid 4> 

■* Forfmtherdetaa.aodtsrmnofaerYioeapplyto J 

* WILLIAM R. HEREFORD or to HENT.r D. SLEEPBE J 
J Hoadqnnrtata Am.riMn Ambnlanoe, "/o Leu, Hig^ason & Co., ^ 
4f 14 Wall Street, New York State Street, Beaton ^ 







I ' • i V 






>P^<^. 




V 





4.°-n^ 


















5^ ^ 













.-^^^ 




<y ^ o N ^ 



y....%,'*°"°'„^' 












■A Q^ 



V* * 



>-<; 










-^^.^ 












.^ .^ 




o 



^oK 







-ov*' /^ 




,0 V- . - a^ 






,^'^ ^^. 







fo^ .'-• 



..^^ o 




s^^ DEC 78 

N.MANCHESTER, 
INDIANA 46962 







^^ 




v^ 



^-./ 



II 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS % 



020 933 862 2 



